The First Legendary Beast Master

Chapter 1005: Combined Advantage

Karl called the Lamia Bodyguards, and Dana brought back her golems as additional guards. That should slow down anything that might consider attacking them in the dark.

With a pair of Totem Ranked Lamia at the hut, they were likely to be the strongest things in the area.

”You look like youʼve got big plans for the night.” Dana noted as she led Karl to the reproduction of their bedroom in the Tiny Worldʼs house.

”Rae pointed out that if you could use her Spectral Knights, you would have a whole army of master blade wielders to fight on your side. But youʼre incompatible with the Necromantic Magic. So, I was thinking of something more like a Terracotta Army. A complement to your existing Golems and Greater Golems.”

Dana smiled. ”I have a skill in my skill tree that is along those lines, but not quite as impressive. Itʼs called [Blade Spirits], and it will advance my [Blade Swarm] skill to pick targets on its own with ethereal spirits. Iʼm only a few points short of being able to use it.”

Karl frowned. ”Isnʼt that one attack per conjured blade, though?”

Dana giggled softly and rolled her eyes at him. ”Even Skills from an advanced class arenʼt intended to be everything you could ever want all in one package. Sure, Iʼd have to call more of them once they attacked, but thatʼs still a massive amount of damage.

Plus, I can leave the blade swarm in place until Iʼm ready to counterattack, and [Auto Parry] will let them block incoming attacks.

Thatʼs hard on the mana usage. But if weʼre being attacked by multiple enemies, I can continually control the blades on my own to keep them away. Itʼs a failsafe in combat, since Iʼm usually the closest to Lotus.

That isnʼt the biggest issue we have right now, though, is it?

Youʼre two full Ranks above the rest of us, except Nachtia. And given whatever happened to your constitution, you might as well be considered halfway to Mythic already. There isnʼt any realistic chance that weʼre going to be able to fight in one cohesive group for much longer.

Once the beasts start to advance, we will be totally left behind, and operating as two different groups who happen to be in one spot.”

Karl picked her up and then flopped back onto the bed. ”Youʼre right. I didnʼt get to go into details, but while we were apart, I was attacked by a group of mercenaries, who had taken up a bounty placed by Lord Bomgon.

A full raiding group of Totems. Ten to be specific. And if they hadnʼt run away to save their surviving members after I killed the healer, it would likely have been a draw. Sure, they werenʼt anything particularly impressive, and they all used Death Magic. But if I had Rae and Cara at Totem Rank with me, it would have been a massacre.

I donʼt want to separate like that, though.

There has to be something that I can do that will bring our power levels closer together again so that we can keep travelling and adventuring together.”

Dana gave him a sad smile. ”And thatʼs why youʼre trying to come up with overpowered new spells. So that if I can make it to Overlord Rank, I will be so far beyond the average that I wonʼt feel like Iʼm holding you back.

I appreciate it, but Iʼm being realistic. It wonʼt be long before itʼs simply impossible for me to keep up. Iʼve known since we started at the Academy that you were going to leave everyone in the dust eventually. Look at the head start that you got on everyone else. But Iʼm savouring the time that we can work together.

Even after that time passes, Iʼll still be there for you to come home to.”

Dana snuggled into his chest, and Karl wisely kept silent about the fact that he had completely overlooked her feelings on the matter in his excitement.

Instead, he swapped to his silk sleepwear and pulled the blankets over them.

Dana might have come to terms with the reality that even after her class advancement, she wasnʼt going to be able to make up the gap in their power levels. But Karl had not.

What was the purpose of all these skills he had if he couldnʼt empower one Dana Mage to keep up with his team?

So, while they rested in each otherʼs arms, he wasnʼt just meditating on adding power to the nine pointed power matrix which enhanced his own abilities. He kept a portion of his mind focused on working on ways to combine the clauses of the Golem and Undead Army spells.

But, as morning approached, he found that they were still too different.

So, he added [Bodyguard] to the mix, allowing its clauses on intelligence and autonomy to fill in the missing areas. That was almost there, but there were still some requirements that werenʼt being met.

Then Karl remembered when he had tried to combine Ghostfire Body, Night Haunter and Apocalypse, among other skills. It had created a transformation skill called [Lord of Destruction]. It was a Totem Ranked transformation skill that he couldnʼt use at the time, but he had the memory of the attempt.

There should be something in there that he could use.

{Spell Combination Successful} [Army of Unholy Retribution] Immortal Ranked Skill. No compatible users found.

Karl stared at the message. If they could use all the component spells, why couldnʼt they use that spell? Was there something missing? Other than the fact that none of them were at the Immortal Rank.

Maybe if he started lower? Combining advanced skills tended to have incredibly high requirements. The better the skill was to start with, the more powerful the components needed to improve it, and the more powerful the user needed to be.

Karl took a moment to consider his next step, then decided to teach Hawk [Lord of Destruction] and call it a night. He could work on how to improve Dana tomorrow.

Maybe he would come up with a new approach to improving either her power or her growth rate in the morning.

{Skill Created} [Lord of Destruction] Totem Rank Transformation Skill. Ignores most damage types, incorporeal, Deals fire damage to both physical and metaphysical targets.