William stretched one more time before he jogged out of the area with more pace and speed than he expected. He found himself before the stairwell within a few moments rather than the few minutes it usually took. This was a quickness that outshot anything he could have imagined from himself ever since he had arrived. Which technically could be just one day, or to him mentally, a week or so with all the deaths and loops.
Can't I just run out of here and escape this area? Never have to deal with Zefor again?
He shook his head immediately.
The thought was a ridiculous one. Zefor was very clear with his warnings about the system. Bounty hunters would start searching for him the moment he escaped this Dungeon World. He wasn’t sure what prevented them from noticing him right now, but he could make an educated guess and assume it had to do with the literal above level twelve thousand monster that inhabited this area.
Not to mention all the monsters that probably filled the entire area. He could barely survive a Death Knight, much less an actual roaming boss or worse, the final boss itself.
It was best not to test his already abysmal luck any further.
William didn’t need to deal with any nightmare monsters that would use him as a toothpick, coming after him in a Dungeon World filled with them as long as he continued on this gradual upward trajectory and scaling difficulty he had been on. Take advantage of what was before him and keep developing to get stronger and stronger. He was already much stronger than any level 6 person. Closer on the lines of a level fifteen or around that by not overextending and taking advantage of what he had available to him.
I need to convince Zefor to give me more of that Heavenly water and food. Free thousands of runes just waiting for me to consume… Not to mention how amazing that bowl of rice and meat was.
He tensed his muscles and prepared himself to lunge past the rickety and dangerously teetering stairs up to the ledge he had established as his rune farm. Taking the same exact pathway only took a few powerful strides that sent him flying up to his destination without affecting the steep steps up. He seemed lighter on his feet even though he was producing so much more force with every bounding jump.
This was much simpler than the headache that was going up the stairwell previously.
No extended anxiety that any of the steps would cave under his weight at any moment and send him falling to his death down the abyss below.
He reached the ledge and bounced on the balls of his feet a few times, enjoying the changes to him thoroughly, before he pulled out his shield and sword. He began testing their weight, swinging his sword as fast as possible while moving and keeping the shield raised and prepared to bash Corrupted Dead skulls.
They feel so light. Weightless.
He swung the sword a couple more times and came to a sudden realization. He felt… more skilled? More in tune with his weapon? It didn’t really make sense to him, but he decided to explore that strange feeling in the pit of his stomach. As though he was grasping at something invisible that he knew was there. What it was exactly, he wasn’t sure. He continued trying new strikes and combinations with his sword, yet, he could not figure out what that feeling was.
William shelved it for another time.
The doorway squeaked open like every time before it. Nothing changed even after the Zefor incident and the fear that William felt. He couldn’t help but chuckle at how cold everything felt. He wasn’t some mary sue main character that the world would cry for his suffering, if anything it tried to pile up on him. He shook his head and continued out into the courtyard. Just as carefully as before.
He wasn’t going to lose his caution just because he had gained a few levels and attribute points, even if it crossed the hundred mark.
William noticed the Death Knight standing there as silently as always. A sentinel with its back toward him. He didn’t doubt that it could still kill him, the only question was if he could finally see it move when it attacked. He didn’t want to test it until he got a few more levels under his belt and a lot more attribute points to make up for the massive gap between them.
The rest of the courtyard was the same, except for the couple he had killed already.
Should I take on two at a time now? Or should I test where I am at against one first?
He wasn’t even sure it was worth it until it became very easy since he still got a proper two levels out of just one Corrupted Guardsman. Maybe one and half for the higher leveled [Class]es. More importantly than that, he didn’t want to wake back up in his cell and risk Zefor reverting back to before the interrogation. Even if it meant more potential runes from the heavenly water and food.
William stopped in his tracks as the system pinged him.
Thankfully, the sound was only in his mind.
Skill Deactivated -
Fearless Earthling - 200%
Status Recalibration in progress…
Recalibration Complete
Parameters require change… Searching for a new threat…
New threat undetected. Please find a new threat as soon as possible
William opened his status page. Nothing about his attributes had changed. Now that it had been mentioned again to him, he hadn’t seen a boost in stats either. Was it hidden by the system? Or were there more rules to fully activate the attribute boost that would double everything. Not that it would help against Zefor or anyone strong enough to activate the skill.
I’ll be testing it in a few seconds anyway.
He pushed forward and approached the closest Corrupted Dead near him. He made sure to dodge any group or pile to make sure he only aggro-ed one of them instead of multiple at a time. Another Corrupted Solder laid on its stomach with the spear to its right. It had the same equipment as the first one he faced though this one was taller and leaner than the shorter, slightly pudgier one.
William was more wary of them than the Corrupted Guardsman, he still remembered how skilled the first one was. It had parried and countered him efficiently, taking much more out of him to defeat it for only about a hundred runes more. If his attributes were still the same as when he last got killed by the Death Knight, it would have been smarter to keep away from them and only target the guardsmen for the best rune farming possible.
The [Chained Lightning Domain] crackled around him without touching any of his potential foes. William wanted to test his newfound powers and attributes against a Corrupted Soldier at its peak without a debilitating injury to its legs. He had been nearly dominated in his last encounter, this would be the perfect way to learn exactly how far he had come.
And hopefully, in the process, level his skills up too.
William manipulated his [Chained Lightning Domain] and targeted the Corrupted Soldier, zapping it enough to wake it up. Its body locked up and spasmed for a few seconds before his attack stopped. He watched as its eyes flared to life, and just like before, its head snapped to him. It did not scream or shout. Only watching him with cautious intent as it stumbled while trying to stand.
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He did not wait for it to regain its balance and make an attempt to chase after him. Its aggro had locked onto him, it would follow regardless if it saw him or not.
The risk of activating the Death Knight was too great for him to play around with his foe.
A system message pinged him, but he ignored it.
William rushed back into the stairwell’s ledge and waited behind the doorway. He would have time to check that notification out soon enough. A very similar process occurred as he heard the soldier make its way into the small hall in between the stairwell and the courtyard. The Corrupted Soldier did not crash and stumble down the small stairs like last time, but instead came in as quietly as it could.
Metal armor scraping on itself and heavy boots tapping on the solid stone floors around them.
It walked into the ledge quietly, its head turning left and right searching for him, even though he knew well enough that it recognized where he was already. He had started to notice that the Corrupted Dead almost tried to make their encounters with him like it was a horror movie. From the way the first one would wait for him to walk by it before grabbing his hand or leg and screaming at the top of its lungs. How the other two would stumble in and grab the doorway with dead, skeletal hands, and slowly expose themselves to him.
Thankfully, William was not easy to frighten.
It gave him enough room to close the door shut, locking it into place, and jump a few steps back to create space.
The Corrupted Soldier turned to him, chattering its teeth and pointing its spear at him.
William activated his [YaKinov Venom Manipulation] skill, a blob of venom filled his palm in less than a second. He did not wait for it to attack or react to any of his movements or skill activation, instead, he hurled the venom directly at its center mass, watching as the blob arched in the air before splashing onto the soldier through the spear it held.
His eyes widened as the spear began melting visibly, before his eyes focused on the damage he had caused the Corrupted Soldier. Corrosive, faded purple liquid ate away at the leather armor around its midsection faster than he expected. Only seconds before it had gone through the armor and was eating at the soldiers spine, damaging it before sizzling downward away from the damaged area due to gravity. Its Imperial Standard armor was not durable or resistant enough to fight off the corrosiveness of his venom.
The Corrupted Soldier stumbled forward and backward, struggling to keep standing.
William rushed it as it teetered and fell face first onto the floor. It screamed and shouted, trying to crawl and stab at him with its spear. He dodged its attempts to skewer him and used a [Heavy Strike] to tear its head off its shoulders, almost sending it off the ledge and into the abyss. It rolled only a foot away from falling down. Its eyes did not lose the red light as it screamed again, chattering louder than before.
If the Death Knight hadn’t been activated before, he was sure it was now. Or so he thought.
Holy… the thing is still alive?
The Corrupted Dead’s body flailed its arms wildly, unable to use the spear, non-functionally trying to grab and kill him. It couldn’t get ahold of him, but he didn’t want to lose this chance he was given. William stepped back and made some space between them.
“This is a perfect opportunity to do some more testing,” he said as he swung his sword a couple times.
He already knew that his [Chained Lightning Domain]didn’t cause it much damage in the courtyard, but he hadn’t made an attempt to really harm it. This time around he manipulated his lightning to overcharge and destroy the body as best as he could. Zapping the Corrupted dead a dozen times and watching as it spasmed and locked its body time and again. Yet, after a couple minutes of what amounted to torture, the spasming would stop and the soldier would return to its regular activity of flailing trying to find him.
William couldn’t help but feel surprised that [YaKinov Venom Manipulation] was more useful than [Chained Lightning Domain], which was only good for a momentary stun instead of direct damage he had been hoping for. He hoped that fighting more organic and living monsters would prove more fruitful for his lightning domain. Then again, pairing them up would be a very powerful combo.
Stun with his domain and create enough time for the monster to be incapable of dodging his venom.
On that note, can I infuse my venom into [Heavy Strike]?
William activated his [YaKinov Venom Manipulation] and [Heavy Strike] at the same time. Something clicked within his system and deep in the same pit in his stomach that he felt when practicing with his sword just a few minutes ago. Corrosive slime secreted from his sword as he swung his powerful blow and cut clean through the boniest part of the Corrupted Soldier’s shoulder. He laughed at how ridiculously easily it was to slice–
“Shit!”
He learned that the Imperial Standard sword did not have his venom immunity.
The corrosive venom was eating away at his precious weapon. He rushed to deactivate the skill and wipe away at the venom, but by then it was far too late. The corrosiveness was far quicker than he could react to, changing his once wonderfully sharp and durable sword into nothing but a hunk of warped metal in the vague shape of a blade. Not more than an inefficient bludgeoning weapon.
A chair, albeit the one he had taken from Zefor, was far more effective as a club than his ruined Imperial sword.
The system pinged him and he let this one come up.
Guardsman Enhanced Sword (Imperial Standard) Destroyed -
-1 Strength
-1 Dexterity
Even the system agreed that it had been wrecked more than salvageable.
William cursed mentally.
I don't have many weapons and I don't know how to use a spear.
He considered pulling out his last Imperial sword, but decided against it. He was not about to test anything ever again with his primary weapon, only secondary ones or if he had a reasonable why. Otherwise, experimentation was now regulated onto weaker weapons he was not going to use most of the time. Like the spears he got from the Corrupted Soldiers.
William didn’t even want to think about ever using the dagger for something like that. The amount of attribute points he was getting from just it alone was too valuable to waste on potentially not worthwhile advancements until he was high level enough that it didn’t give him enough of a boost.
Not mentioning that he didn’t like how close and personal he had to get with it.
Range was king in his mind to a certain extent. Why get close when being far enough would do the job perfectly well, especially when he didn’t need to outright kill them on the ledge. Just push them off the edge and down into the abyss. Not that he was required to anymore now that his [YaKinov Venom Manipulation] was effective enough to debilitate the Corrupted Dead. Maybe even one shot them if he got lucky with a head shot.
William picked up the broken Corrupted Soldier’s spear off the ground. He only had about a foot of the shaft left connected to the spearhead with the bottom still smoking and burnt black. All the venom he had thrown had sizzled its way out of existence by that point. It was already damaged and a type of weapon he was not fond of anyway, he wasn’t too worried about turning it into mush.
The Corrupted Soldier’s body kept trying to crawl and grab onto him even though it only had one arm and legs were basically unserviceable. As soon as it entered his lightning domain, the electricity started taking shots at it. His previous mental command still active. It spasmed with every zap, only to push through, getting closer to him.
He channeled his [Chained Lightning Domain] with [Heavy Strike] hoping he got the same reaction as he did with the venom.
A lightning sword would be awesome.
The system pinged him, this time he checked his notifications from the very first one he got in the courtyard.
Currently facing a being 25 levels above you - Foe Engaged!
7% increase to all stats active
—
Guardsman Enhanced Spear (Imperial Standard) -
+1 Strength
+1 Dexterity
—
Incompatible Skill Pairing Detected -
AoE Domain -> Melee Attack
Pairing Failed
His venom was too corrosive and now his lightning domain was the wrong type of skill to be used in tandem with his [Heavy Strike]. William would need to either wait until he got a new skill that was more applicable or found a weapon that could handle his venom without turning into a hunk of metal at the first use. Otherwise, he was stuck with what he had.
I’ve wasted enough time.
William threw the broken spear into his inventory in case he wanted to test things later on, and then pulled out his dagger from its sheathe. He grabbed the Corrupted Soldier’s head, which tried to bite his hand off, and stabbed into its skull without any resistance or skill. Going through helmet, bones, and more with ease. Just pure sharpness and the skill of its maker boosting it to incredible heights. It was a perfect assassin's weapon to get in close and cause maximum damage without anyone the wise, but until he got a sneaky type of [Class], it was regulated to a side arm just for attribute boosts.
Battle Concluded!
Killed - [Corrupted Soldier (E+)]
Runes Gained - 2633
Novice Heavy Strike [3/99] -> [6/99]
Chained Lightning Domain [4/99] -> [7/99]
YaKinov Venom Manipulation [6/99] -> [10/99]
Time for a couple level ups and a bunch of unallocated stat points!
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