System Change

The first wave began and Derek immediately launched himself towards a corner of the battlegrounds where one of the golems spawned. Just like Alanah had explained, the four Deathsworn and Alanah all stuck by his side.

“I can gain just about as much skill experience fighting a single one as I would if I went through and fought against them all,” Derek said as they moved forward. “So… once everyone hits the one in front of me to reduce the experience points, you can all go do your own thing.”

“That’s the plan,” Alanah said as she traveled right beside him.

Derek looked at Alanah and nodded, then back at the four Deathsworn. He realized he was speaking to them the same as he would have anyone else instead of only talking to Alanah. “Can they…” he started. “Can those four listen? Like, will they do what I say, or are they just on autopilot?”

“They will listen to you as long as it doesn’t go against any commands that I have given them,” Alanah replied. “You can even message them via the Telepathy skill if you would like. I have already commanded them to listen to you as they would me for now.”

“Great,” Derek replied. Finally, he reached what seemed to be a wind golem just as it finished putting itself together. “I guess this one is mine,” he said.

“Go!” Alanah commanded her Deathsworn, and they all rushed in and landed a hit on the wind golem. Actually, they did more than just land a hit. Each one unleashed what would have been a devastating attack if it had been against any enemy other than a golem.

A blinding light appeared as an entire lower joint of the golem’s stone base was melted away from Gianna, the light mage. Derek was even surprised when he saw a greatsword appear in the hand of one of the older men. I guess I shouldn’t be, he thought. It only makes sense that she has outfitted all these guys with proper equipment—including storage rings.

The man crashed down on the wind golem’s shoulder with his greatsword—causing stone shards to fly everywhere as it crushed the rock beneath. The two other Deathsworn weren’t as destructive as the first. One hit the golem with some debuffs, and the other whipped out a giant shield and bashed it against the golem’s abdomen. Following her four fighters, Alanah appeared behind the golem and jabbed her rapier into its other shoulder. Then, with a flick of her finger, the golem’s shoulder exploded more than the other had when her Deathworn crushed it with his greatsword.

“That should be enough,” Alanah said as she appeared next to Derek, who was still hovering in front of the golem with his Void Steps skill.“Yup,” he said to the siren. “That should do it.” With a flick of his wrist, Derek summoned another of the skill experience potions from his storage and drank it down. “I guess it’s my turn now.”

“We’ll go collect the other cores,” Alanah replied before vanishing once again. Behind her, three of the Deathsworn kicked off the ground and chased after—they were fast, but not as fast as Edgar or Avery. Surprisingly, the elven light mage shone brightly, then completely disappeared from Derek’s sight.

Derek looked in the direction that Alanah had gone while the wind golem worked on putting itself back together. Almost as soon as his eyes locked on to the siren, a bright flash caught his attention and the light mage appeared, floating in the air next to her. Now that’s one hell of a skill, he thought. I wonder if it’s some type of teleportation skill, or if it’s more like the one that Edgar uses with his lightning. Actually… is she able to travel at the speed of light with that skill? How the hell was Alanah able to catch her? He couldn’t help but wonder, but shook his head. No… I bet she didn’t have a problem at all.

Derek quickly raised his forearm as a wind blade collided with him. His wyvern armor shook the attack off, with nothing more than a light scratch being left. Look like it’s ready, he thought to himself as he launched himself forward and began his own duel.

Once again, Derek fell into a rhythm of grinding skills through fighting golems. After everything that Alanah had told him, he focused much of his attention on Void Steps and Void Shift. Void Shift was a relatively hard skill to level, but in reality, he hadn’t had the need to use it much recently. However, it was part of his class skills, so it was definitely one that needed to take precedent over others.

Void Steps would naturally level with anything else. It was a skill that he used alongside pretty much every other skill he had. He was sure that once all his other battle skills reached max level, he would also have Void Steps there, too.

While shifting in and out of the void while fighting the golem, Derek occasionally looked over at the other fights. Alanah was hovering in the air behind her Deathsworn with her arms crossed. Three of the four Deathsworn were distracting a golem, while the fourth one—the light mage—waited for an opportunity. Soon enough, Alanah flashed forward with her rapier, then back.

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As soon as the siren moved back, the light mage also flashed forward. When she appeared next, she had her hand on the earth golem’s core and began pumping what looked like light magic into it. All of this happened very fast, but since Derek was alternating between the void and reality, their fighting seemed to pause every so often—allowing for Derek to get a good look at all that was going on.

He smiled as he watched the earth golem fall apart and the Deathsworn appear next to Alanah with the core in her hands. Looks like Alanah’s plan really does work, Derek thought to himself as he moved behind his Absolute Nullify skill to block a flurry of wind blades directed at him. These golem dungeons are going to be extremely busy soon. I better get what I need, because once everyone else learns of their value, I probably won’t be able to get back in without waiting for days in line. And I hate lines.

Derek saw a notification appeared when another wind blade was pulled into his Absolute Nullify skill, and his smile grew even wider knowing that the skill had just leveled up. While moving in and out of the void with Void Shift and Void Steps, Derek did make sure to throw in any other skills he needed to level once they were off of cooldown.

Soon, though, he received the notification of the boss appearing. With that, he pulled himself out of the void and rushed at the wind golem. A quick combination of Multi-Strike and Channel Void brought the stones crashing onto the ground. He picked up the inactive core, stored it, then slipped back into the void.

After pulling himself through a few void ripples, he soon found himself in front of a quickly forming, boss rank fire golem. It was just what he needed to rapidly level his Fire Resistance skill. Derek swiftly deactivated Void Shift and let his surroundings fill up with flame from the golem. The fire hitting him was a little toasty, but it was nothing that his Greater Meditation skill couldn’t help him heal through.

Once the fire golem finished building itself, Derek sent a quick telepathic message to the four Deathsworn and Alanah, asking them to go ahead and do some damage to the boss while he fought it. Moments later, the four Deathsworn stopped what they were doing to clash against the fire golem. After they all got a good hit or two in, they fell back to the remaining regular golems and continued their work.

During his fight with the boss fire golem, Derek almost laughed as he saw the notifications appearing one after another. His resistance skills were some of the easiest skills to level, but the Fire Resistance one was even more so. I have got to raid… borrow some more resistance skills. If there is fire, mental, magic, and physical, then there has to be one for just about every element. Having all of those would be essential in surviving if all this ascending business leads to me being in a place with stronger people and beasts.

He’d seen some other resistance skill scrolls before, but didn’t place as much value on them as he did on the ones that acted more generally like Physical Resistance and Mental Resistance. He would have to remedy that oversight soon. Derek made a mental note to ask Alanah about those skills as soon as they finished their current dungeon. If anyone knew where he could quickly find some without it taking away from their dungeon crawling, it would be her.

Another notification of his Fire Resistance leveling rang out, and he actually did chuckle. Once he’d had enough of being toasted alive—even if it didn’t hurt him much or leave any lasting damage, it still didn’t feel good—he shifted into the void and began using his usual skills on the boss. After a short time, the noises that he’d been constantly hearing from other battles ceased, and he knew that Alanah and her four Deathsworn had finished collecting their cores.

And sure enough, not long after that, he received the notification that a new wave of enemies would appear soon. ‘Let’s take this one out,’ he sent to Alanah. The siren didn’t even reply—instead, Derek felt her presence appear next to him. He nodded, then shot forward with Void Steps until he was directly in front of the fire core. Alanah—in Dawn Siren form—appeared next to him.

As he punched the core with his void covered fists, Alanah grabbed it and directed her vibrations into it. The golem was not long for the world as it soon lost all power and all of its stones fell to the ground—some even formal small puddles of lava as they melted from the residual fire. It was quite the sight, and Derek could barely even believe that his body was able to shake the heat at that level off so easily.

Still, he had no doubt that if the fire golem had gotten a hold of him and hit him directly with its active skills, his Greater Meditation wouldn’t have such an easy time countering the flame.

“That’s that,” Derek said to Alanah while wiping the sweat off his brow.

“Time for the next wave,” Alanah replied in the eerily seductive voice that appeared when she transformed.

“Same thing?” Derek asked.

“Same thing,” she answered.

The rest of the dungeon was simple. It was easy for Alanah and Derek to fall into a rhythm as they cleared each wave. Derek couldn’t help but notice how much easier and more relaxing it was to run dungeons with someone like Alanah. He knew that she would be wherever he needed her, whenever he needed her. Sure, he trusted Avery and Edgar to have his back in a fight, but he felt that Alanah was much more… natural at it.

The final wave came with a surprise to both him and Alanah. They retrieved the inactive core from the boss golem, then looked at each other with raised brows. The surprise was that one of the types of golems they had fought before the boss appeared. His Identify skill identified the core of the golem as a spectral core. Derek thought it was illusion or something like that, but he was wrong.

“Do you mind if I take that core?” he asked Alanah once everything was settled.

“Of course not,” Alanah said, then tossed the spectral core to Derek. “For Thomas?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Derek answered. As soon as he saw the core, he thought it would pair well with Thomas. His ‘element’ was soul, but from what Derek had seen, it wasn’t too different from how the golem was fighting the Deathsworn before. “I think it will make a great spear or piece of armor for the kid. Brandi will surely figure out something amazing with it.”

“I’m sure she will,” Alanah replied. “And maybe we’ll find something even better for her to work on.”

The two of them had known that all kinds of golems were able to appear in the dungeon, but getting such a core gave them hope for some even more rare loot. Derek took a cursory glance at his skills sheet and nodded. He still had a way to go, but he was getting the fast.

He looked at Alanah and said, “Again?”

She, in her regular form, smiled back and replied, “Again.”