The Pinnacle Warrior

With a roar, Astrid spun in a circle and managed to sweep the dragon off of its feet. She released its hind leg, which had been tweaked inward. In front of it, Felix was under the influence of his new Skill, Defender’s Avatar, and instead of standing a fair bit under two meters tall, he was nearly four meters tall. It was much like an equivalent to Astrid’s own Body Surge, though, instead of a 100% boost to Power and Alacrity, it granted a 80% boost to Power, Alacrity, and Fortitude, for a higher mana cost and shorter duration. All of his equipment, which had swelled with him, allowed him to fight the dragon face-to-face. Of course, the Boss outweighed him by quite a bit, but now it was the size difference between a man and a horse, not a toddler and a nightmare.

As the dragon fell onto its side, Felix stepped over it and smashed his shield down into the dragon’s throat one, two, three times. Then, he hopped away, and Defender’s Avatar faded, making him slump down to his regular height.

The dragon gagged on the ground, its throat mostly crushed, and Astrid stepped into that window and, her strike enhanced by Body Surge, smashed the dragon’s head against the mountain. Only a split second passed before the kill notification flashed in Astrid’s vision, but she didn’t care about that. This was, so far as she and the rest of her party were aware, the last irregular monster in this Dungeon branch, and she smiled widely as she looked at the notification from the Great One.

Total Level: 60 (388,187/390,000) => 61 (1,139/450,000)

Astrid raised her fist over her head, her shoulder aching too much to do so before she dismissed her hammer. With how much her attributes had climbed over the past month, the 80 kilogram weapon was no longer difficult to wield, but it was still heavy, and the effects of the echo stone head, though they were mostly transferred to the thing getting hit, were hard on her shoulder.

“Finally, you join us,” Muti grinned, dismissing her helmet and pulling Astrid into a rough hug. Astrid dismissed her own, and the Barbarian grabbed the back of Astrid’s head and kissed the Warrior’s forehead.

“I thought that waiting until all the irregulars were taken care of was a sufficient time to unveil my majesty,” Astrid laughed, pulling away from Muti. “And unlike the rest of you, I wouldn’t mind actually looking at my other options before jumping onto one.”

“I did too,” Felix protested with a chuckle. “Everyone else just took the upgrade to their Skill. And you’re probably going to do that anyways, with how useful Body Surge is.”

“I’m honestly worried about hurting myself whenever I use it if that bonus continues to climb,” Astrid laughed.

“You mean hurting yourself even more?” Benedict scoffed. “I don’t think anybody has forgotten how those first few attempts went.”

Astrid waved him off, smiling as the party set about harvesting the head, claws, and some of the largest scales on the dragon. She was fine taking at least a little bit of time before she checked her new offerings, as there was plenty to get taken care of before they got moving.

“It’s hard to believe that we’ve gone through this massive spike in power again,” Skandr said as he pulled out a pair of meter-long blades and started to renew the enchantments on them. One by one, he handed them to Felix and Astrid, and they started carving away the most valuable parts of the dragon Boss, while Muti had already begun doing so.

“It’s also funny to think,” Astrid agreed as she slipped her knife under one of the massive scales on the dragon’s chest to open up a cut into its stomach to get at its organs, “that something like a year ago, we were in the Wandering Trials, and in the same amount of time, we gained all the experience from level 20 to level 43. Now, we’re happy about 10 levels compared to the 23 we got at that point.”

“Which was significantly less experience than how much we’ve gotten recently,” Skandr countered. His eyes fluttered for a second, and, his calculations complete, he said, “We gained about two and a half million experience through the entire Wandering Trials, with quadruple experience on every monster we fought, as well as fighting against hordes and swarms instead of mostly elite monsters as we have here. So, in the wyvern nest, we’ve fought fewer numbers, and not every monster that we’ve come across has been irregular. Even so, we’ve gained almost a million experience more overall. And that’s individually, so about five million experience in total more.”

“Fighting irregular monsters a watershed above us has been a whole lot of experience to gain,” Astrid agreed. “Plus, we’ve gotten all this equipment and have plenty of good things waiting for us.”

“Yes,” Felix said, his fingers playing idly with his new helmet, his newest piece of equipment, “we’ve been lucky to have Olafson helping us out.”

“And Vera,” Benedict said, the not-so-subtle object of his affections quick to jump from his lips.

“Are you going to survive separating from her?” Skandr asked, laughing.

“Who said we’re going to go anywhere? Sure, we’re done with this branch, but my understanding was that we were going to get into the Dungeon proper now, and there’s an entrance nearby,” he protested.

“This entrance leads into a stretch that is pretty weak in the Steel tier,” Astrid said with a shrug. “There’s another entrance maybe two or three hundred kilometers away. That one should be, according to Gabriel, better suited to our abilities.”

“Yes, the geezer delver is smart,” Benedict shot back, “but we can just move through the less challenging parts of the Dungeon proper and into other places that suit us better.”

“We’ll discuss this as a party,” Astrid said with a shrug, “but I’ll put my own opinion forward right now: I’d rather pass once through three hundred kilometers of Verdant Sanctuary instead of two hundred kilometers of unimpressive, but still dangerous and hostile enemy territory once a week to be able to more easily return to Neverwood.”

“Once a week?” Benedict said, the other two men giving her similar looks.

“We are going into the Dungeon proper to give ourselves a challenge, right?” Astrid asked, keeping her tone even.

Everybody nodded.

“If we’re going to have to go through hundreds of kilometers of enemy territory to get to where we’re wanting to go, then how long we are going to be there once we arrive had better justify the journey we take,” she continued. “Maybe we can get through the hundreds of kilometers of unpredictable, monster-infested Dungeon in a single day, but then we’ll need to rest to prepare to fight against the ones that will pose a challenge to us on the second day, and even if we only take a single day at our destination, we’ll have another day of travel back to the surface. In that case, we’re spending two days of travel for a single day of delving, and that seems pretty stupid to me.”

“Which would mean, to make it worth it,” Skandr added, understanding the point she was getting at, “we’d have to spend at least three days down at our destination before returning. And all of this is with the optimistic assumption that we would be able to travel all that distance in a single day.”

“So,” Astrid closed, every other one of the members of the party nodding and understanding, even a reluctant Benedict, “if we were to stay based out of Neverwood and delve into the Dungeon proper here, I would estimate that we may be back in town every week. Maybe a little bit longer, depending on what we stumble into down there. That’s a lot more dangerous than just going somewhere where we don’t have to trek through hundreds of kilometers into lands unknown in the hopes that we don’t come across one of the dozens and hundreds of dangers that patrol and wander through the Dungeon proper.”

“I get it, there’s no need to keep hammering it home,” Benedict grumbled.

“That said,” Astrid said with a smile on her face, “I don’t see why we wouldn’t be able to make a trip back over land every once in a while when we’re taking a break from the Dungeon proper.”

At that, Benedict’s face lit up, and Astrid couldn’t help but laugh. He flushed and waved her off. Astrid didn’t have to say anything as Skandr and Felix both leaned in to rib the Bard. At least, Skandr focused on teasing while Felix did only a little, mostly preoccupied with continuing the harvest of the Boss.

In the end, it took the party about half an hour of bloody, gory work to finish harvesting the most valuable parts of the Boss, basically every part of its organs in Astrid’s spatial pouch, while the compressed mana in its neck and its head were in another pouch, with a third holding the severed claws and spikes from along its back.

Then, feeling disgusting, Astrid, Felix, and Muti looked at Skandr, who stood and summoned his water-laden cloud. With his now Steel-tier Mental Bastion Skill combined with the boost from his Boon of Fortification, the cloud was basically a moving, hovering sphere of water, and it covered Astrid’s entire body, swirling and scrubbing the gore away before dropping to the ground, when another sphere came into existence to do the same to the other two butchers.

“And we’re ready to go up now?” Astrid asked, feeling much better without the taste of iron in her mouth.

“You don’t have to ask me twice,” Benedict said, standing up and rolling his shoulders. “I should be getting my new flute today.”

“Good, and we can spend the time up to the surface,” Skandr added, “talking about what different Skill options you’ve got.”

“Like I said,” Astrid laughed, “I’m happy to look them all over, though I’m pretty sure I’ll just end up taking the upgrade to Body Surge like most of you.”

“But you could get a new Skill like mine,” Felix said, smiling.

“Possibly,” Astrid agreed. “Even so, I’d probably try to work on it and see if I could get it offered at Steel tier instead of Iron like you did.”

“I’d rather have a slight reduction in Skill quality,” Felix shrugged, “in order to make sure I still got this Skill instead of losing it entirely.”

Astrid nodded, agreeing as she thought of taking Quick Recovery those years ago instead of Power Strike. Instead of continuing to think about the past, Astrid shrugged and pulled up her different Skill options.

Bull’s Charge (Iron) For a Minor mana and stamina cost, grants the Skill holder a 100% increase to Alacrity and Power while they charge forward.

Death Knight Strike (Iron): For a Moderate mana and stamina cost, channels the strength of all creatures who have been slain by the Skill holder’s hand. 

Light Step (Iron): For a Moderate mana cost, reduces the Skill holder’s weight and that of their equipment for 10 minutes and increases the Skill holder’s Alacrity by 50% 

Mental Fortress (Steel): Grants a 40% bonus to Self-Mastery and Acumen. For a Minor mana cost, doubles the effect of Self-Mastery aligned mana for the purpose of protection for two minutes. For a Heavy mana cost, doubles the effect of Self-Mastery aligned mana for the purpose of protection for two minutes for the Skill holder and their allies within 40 meters.

Body Surge (Steel): For a Moderate cost to mana and stamina, increase the Skill holder’s Power and Alacrity by 150% as well as the Skill holder’s Fortitude by 75% for one minute.

In the back of her mind, Astrid had mentally cursed her hurry when she evolved for the past month. After all, it would’ve been much simpler to practice what was necessary to possibly get Body Surge offered to her at Steel as she continued to delve, and she’d worried that she wouldn’t get the option for Pristine Mind again. When she returned to Humanity’s Bulwark, she would do everything necessary to ensure that some random noble couldn’t just force her into slavery, and a mind protection Skill would take care of most of that for her.

Instead of losing the opportunity to get Pristine Mind, she now had the possibility of taking Mental Fortress straight at Steel tier instead of taking it at Iron. Obviously, she couldn’t have known that she would spend the entirety of her time in the first watershed of Steel resisting increasingly more powerful waves of magical fear from wyvern and dragons. Now that she thought about it, taking constant barrages of fear and protecting herself and her allies from all sorts of mental attacks was perfect training for exactly this Skill.

Body Surge being offered at Steel tier was alluring, and she wanted to take it, but she could always take it again later. It was always going to be offered to her, because she already had the Skill. Mental Fortress, though, might entirely disappear from her options when she got to level 71. After all, three other Skill offerings had disappeared since level 51: Conqueror’s Aura, Destructive Wave, and Gravity’s Grasp. In their place stood Bull’s Charge, Death Knight Strike, and Light Step.

Despite the interest that Mental Fortress brought her, Astrid couldn’t help but look at these other Skills as well. Bull’s Charge and Light Step were somewhat similar, the first definitely being influenced by the enchantment on her boots that strengthened her charging, while Light Step was inspired by her jumping at the wyverns and dragons as they swooped over her. The thought of halving the weight she had while doing that was interesting, but Astrid couldn’t quite understand how much of an impact it would have on her jumping. After all, her weight, as well as that of her armor, was not particularly difficult for her to manage. Weighing half as much wouldn’t do a whole lot for her. Would it?

Then there was Death Knight Strike. Beyond being an interesting Skill, the lack of information that the Great One provided was interesting. The more things that she killed, the more powerful it would become, right? And as her mental attributes had climbed so quickly in Steel, her mana reserves had grown much more profound as well. Unconquerable Aura, having previously had a Severe mana cost, now only bore a Heavy cost, and, Astrid winced to herself, she hadn’t been using it basically at all.

It sounded like it would be an invincibly powerful Skill. After all, she was a finisher and always would be. She’d already killed untold thousands of monsters, and that number would only continue to climb. Did this Skill mean that, the older she became, the stronger she would be?

To an extent, yes, but she shook her head. Obviously it couldn’t be that powerful. It was a Moderate stamina and mana cost, less than a fifth of her total. That was a lot of her resources, if she was thinking of it in a vacuum, but she shouldn’t. A Skill that only consumed that much couldn’t be the overwhelming, destructive Skill that she was imagining as she heard the name and description. The Great One gave many Skills that changed everything, but never in a way that defied reality or the costs to change things. This cost simply couldn’t equate to a Skill that would become as strong as Astrid was thinking. 

In fact, now that she thought about it, though she was interested in Death Knight Strike, she felt there was something else she was forgetting.

Once again, she’d fallen back on the comfortable uses of Spectral Graviton, and it wasn’t feeling as powerful as she felt it should have. Yes, she could throw more mana at it to make the effect stronger, but Gravity Surge and Spectre Burst had both felt stronger. Though she wanted Death Knight Strike, if for no other reason than to understand exactly what it did, she needed to resume real experimentation with Spectral Graviton as well as Unconquerable Aura. She needed to condense it further, better limit its inefficiencies, and stretch her own abilities. It was a Skill granted by the second extraordinary rarity Class in a row, it was more than worth mastering, to say nothing of Unconquerable Aura.

“What’s that face about?” Skandr asked, pulling her out of her thoughts.

“What face was I making?” she asked.

“Like a pack of lionesses had stolen your gazelle after you shot it,” Muti said.

With a chuckle, Astrid waved her head back and forth and said, “I guess that’s not entirely incorrect. I’ve just realized that, despite my promise to myself to prove to the Golden Fist that I’m better than them, I’ve lost a lot of my experimentation. And I’ve forgotten to use and practice with Unconquerable Aura.”

“Something to always continue doing,” Skandr agreed. “So what Skills were you offered?”

After giving a quick explanation, Astrid shrugged as Benedict put a finger in her face and said, “Just you wait. I’ll get Steel tier Skills at the next watershed as well.”

“Looking forward to it,” Astrid laughed. “Did any of you have any good reason for me to not take Mental Fortress?”

“Of course there isn’t,” Skandr laughed. “It’s a good Skill, especially considering what we are all planning to do. Combined with the fact that it’s Steel tier? Seems like a no-brainer to me.”

“Why would only someone without a brain make such a wise choice?” Muti interrupted, pulling the flow of conversation away. “That does not make sense, as many of your sayings do not.”

“That’s not what the saying means,” Astrid laughed. “It means it’s so simple to make the decision that it doesn’t even require a brain to choose.”

“Ah, I suppose that makes sense. I agree. Take the Skill.”

The rest of the party seemed to agree with the sentiment, and it wasn’t long before Astrid shrugged and made the selection. Her thoughts involuntarily scattered as her Self-Mastery and Acumen grew, and a few short seconds later, she was back to herself.

Then, looking at the rest of her party, Astrid asked, “Are we ready to get back to the surface? After all, the Dungeon proper is calling our name.”