Fight. Level. Survive.

Chapter 76 - Dragons Hoard

Before they set off, Nina announced that she was starving and was going to get breakfast. Mayry tried to follow her, but he held her back. “We’ll meet you down there in a bit,” he said to Nina before she left.

At a questioning look from Mayry, he told her about the new system guidebook page.

“Have you already taken a look?” She asked.

“No, not yet; I wanted to wait for you so we could look together.”

She looked a little surprised but smiled and kissed him, “You’re sweet. Okay, whip it out.”

It took real effort not to make a crude joke, but he prevailed. He didn’t want this to take too long because he was also starting to get hungry.

He bought out his guidebook and flicked to the second unlocked page. He felt Mayry next to him, peering over his shoulder as he read.

Essence Distribution.

This page will help the user choose how to distribute any essence they have gained to either strengthen themselves or their system.

Chaos Essence is the purest form of Chaos’s power and can be:

Converted into experience points (Default)

Used to Increase stat points.

Used to increase the amount of abilities the user is able to possess.

Used to overclock certain abilities.

History of Essence use.

Two levels of Chaos Essence used to break divine paralysis.

3000 Chaos Essence taken from System user, automatically converted to experience.

3000 Chaos Essence taken from System user, automatically converted to experience.

10,000 Chaos essence taken from an iteration, used to increase each stat by 15 and increase the number of abilities able to be used.

500 Chaos Essence absorbed from chaos orbs, unspent.

The page was interesting; it explained how he had managed to spend levels when facing the echo of the demon and why the essence he had taken from Gael and Aiden had just converted into experience. Looking at how his system had spent his previous essence gains, the 500 he had gotten from the chaos orbs didn’t seem like they were worth the incredible pain he had gone through; he hadn’t stuck with it for long, but still! Going forward, he would allocate more points to his Willpower to help him push through the pain and his Resilience to hopefully take the edge off of the pain.

“Am I missing something?” Mayry asked hesitantly, “It doesn’t actually say anything about how to use the essence.”

She was right, of course. It really only told him what essence could be spent on, not how to spend it. After looking through his menus to see if anything had been added, he answered, “No, it doesn’t. Let me try something.”

He closed his eyes and tried to will his 500 Essence to increase his Resilience and Willpower stat. After a few seconds of concentration, he felt something spread through him. Starting from the back of his head, it felt as if icy water was being poured him, slowly spreading through his body.

Checking his stats, he saw both had increased by 3 points. Running some mental calculations, he couldn’t figure out if there was any sort of standard XP to Stat exchange rate, 500 essences for 6 stat points seemed odd when compared to 10,000 essences for 15 points in each of his 8 stat points, even when considering a cost for adding extra ability slots. It was Chaos Essence, after all; it made sense for the costs to be somewhat random, as was its nature. It was still very annoying.

After spending the Essence, he started to feel the slight push in the back of his mind to absorb more from the orbs or to go out and find and kill more others and take their Essence; he easily pushed the urge away, ignoring it. It was slightly worrying that the addiction was making itself known so obviously, but as long as he kept his Willpower stat high enough, he was sure it wouldn’t become a problem.

“Sorted, it was just a matter of concentrating on what I wanted to spend it on.” He explained to Mayry.

“You know, I think I felt something when you did whatever you did… It was like I got colder for a moment… must be our Demon bond thing… strange.” She blushed and rapidly segwayed the subject, “What does your character sheet look like now? It’s been a while since I had a look.”

“I’ll show you, but then let’s eat; I feel like I haven’t eaten in days. ” He gave her a quick run down,

Name: Mason Hughes

Level: 30

Current XP: 32000 / 32420

Race: Human

Class: Hunter

Health Points (HP): 890

Mana Points (MP): 610

Stamina Points (SP): 390

Stats

Strength: 67 (+15)

Agility: 69

Endurance: 58

Vitality: 79

Resilience: 63 (+26)

Intelligence: 93 (+10%)

Perception: 63

Willpower: 62

Free Points: 3

Skills

Identify (Expert), Mana Control – INT (Expert), Emotional Outburst – PER (Expert), Lesser Invisibility – PER (Expert), Random Greater Summon INT (Expert), Sarcastic Prick – INT (Expert), Mental Manipulation – WIL (Expert), Mental Resistance, Ballistic Touch – STR (Expert) Division – INT (Expert),

Teleport – AGI (Expert) Sacrifial Healing – VIT (Expert)

Base Skills

Universal Translator, Inventory (Advanced), System Guidebook (Basic)

Class Skills

Basic Monster Tracking, Evaluate Monster, Gather Intel

After he had finished, they headed downstairs as they discussed. “I’m very curious about how this bond thing works. I feel a lot stronger since coming into my Dad’s side of things, but I’m certainly not as strong as you are, at least not unless I’m fully ramped up. It’s so unfair you have a system that explains everything to you!” She complained.

Shrugging, he said, “Eh, it has its moments; most of the time, it isn’t actually that helpful, just kinda sassy."

“Huh, that’s exactly how I’d describe you.” She replied with a smirk.

He shook his head, “I’m definitely a bad influence on you.”

They got to the dining area and searched for Nina. They finally spotted her behind a massive heaping plate full of breakfast stuff, waving at them. They sat down opposite her, and he couldn’t help but gawk at the amount of food on her overflowing plate. There were piles of sausages, bacon, eggs, tomatoes and all sorts of other things he couldn’t identify. Nina was shovelling it in at a pace that even he would struggle to maintain.

Mayry, confused, asked, “Did you get food for us too?”

Pausing her meal for a second, she glared at Mayry, her eyes momentarily becoming dragon-like, and she growled, “No. Mine.” Before she continued her feast, inching her plate of food ever so slightly closer to her side of the table.

“Ok…” Mayry replied, getting up and walking over to get herself some food; Mason followed. “What was that all about?”

“I have no idea. Did you see her face when I reached for her food? I thought she was going to bite my hand off.” Mayry laughed.

“I’m sure it’s fine; maybe she really is just very hungry.” He wasn’t too concerned; mostly, he just found it funny that Nina’s small frame was somehow able to contain all the food she was shoving into her face.

He filled his plate with slightly more breakfast than he would usually eat and headed back to the table, Mayry following behind him. He did a double take as he saw the plate that had been in front of Nina was empty. She sat there with a satisfied look on her face, humming a happy tune.

They sat down and couldn’t help but ask, “Where’d all the food go?”

Nina looked genuinely puzzled as she looked back at them, idly wiping away a bit of egg that had been clinging to the corner of her mouth. "What?" she asked, confused.

He exchanged a bemused glance with Mayry. "The food," Mayry prompted, pointing at Nina's empty plate. “That was piled higher than I was tall less than two minutes ago, and now it’s empty!”

Nina's eyes widened as if she was only then realising what they were talking about; she shrugged and said, “Oh, that, I ate it. Duh.”

Mayry massaged her temples in an attempt to coax her brain into making sense of the situation. "You’re telling us that you… ate all of that?" She asked, gesturing towards the crumbless plate.

Nina nodded, a proud grin plastered across her face. "Yup”.

"But... how?" Mayry sputtered, her fork halfway to her mouth.

Nina shrugged again. "I was hungry," she said simply as if that explained everything.

Both he and Mayry Gawked at her, and she just stared back until he noticed the corner of the lip twitch upwards, and she broke out into a chuckle. “You two are really easy to mess with. No, I’m not just needlessly gorging myself with all this.” She kept laughing at her own joke as she wiped a tear from her eye. Her laughter died down, and she explained, “It’s just a quirk of my ability. Anytime I use it, I need to eat a lot before using it again.” She shot Mayry an apologetic look, “Sorry for snapping at you. I can get really territorial over whatever I’m eating; It’s like a dragon’s hoard or something. Sometimes I think I’m more Dragon than girl.”

She frowned and, as an afterthought, added, “You guys are good to pay for all this, right? Because I am, like, so broke.” She gave a hopeful grin while waiting for their answer.

Subtly nudging Mayry, he pulled his eyebrows together into a frown. “Oh… We thought you were paying for everything… Isn’t that what we agreed? We help you with your Tree quest, and you pay for the Inn room and food?”

“The Inn room?!” Her eyes grew wide, and she darted to Mayry. “I thought you paid for that last night! And we never agreed to that!”

Mayry jumped in, “No… I distinctly remember asking you last night, and you nodded and said, “I’ll pay for everything because I’m an all-powerful dragon.”

“What?! I never said that-“ She sighed, “You’re messing with me, aren’t you?” Seeing their matching grins, she growled and added, “That was so not funny! I was thinking I was going to sell my kidney just to cover the room!”

Through her fit of giggles, Mayry managed to say, “That’s what you get! You should have seen the look on your face!”

“You guys are assholes!” she said, pouting, which just made them laugh harder.

After they finished the food, they went back up to their room and grabbed their stuff. It was time to hunt down this suspicious tree.

****

They followed Nina out of town and towards the area her contract specified. The way she led them had them passing the caves that had held the Cronenburgian abominations. Shivers ran down his spine as his enhanced senses detected the faint lingering smell of the cave, which brought back memories of the horrible monsters they had fought the previous day.

“Okay,” Nina said as they approached a grove of trees. This is the last place I remember before that thing grabbed me. The tree we’re looking for is apparently the biggest and a slightly different shade than the rest of them, so keep an eye out. The report was vague, but quite a few people have been reported missing around here recently.” She frowned, “Although, now that I think about it, that could have just been the flesh monster things….”

He wouldn’t say this out loud because he knew the girls would make fun of him but he had been looking forward to this. He would always jump at any chance he had to kill some trees. Did this make him worry about his mental health? Sure. Would a therapist probably say that he had developed a complex aimed at trees because the incredibly tall Kathan Trees had been amongst the first things he had seen upon arriving on this world, and anytime he knocked down a tree or killed a tree-themed monster, it gave him comfort because it proved he had power and control that he previously lacked? Maybe! But screw therapists; they were almost as bad as trees!

“Let’s split up, and each take a different section of the grove. Mason, you go that way; I’ll go this way, and Nina, you go that way. If any of us see anything even slightly out of the ordinary, we should shout, and the rest of us will come running.”

Knocked out of his mental ramblings, he shook his head, “I don’t know if that’s a good idea; splitting the party rarely works out well. The moment we split up, one of us is going to get eaten.”

“You think a tree is going to eat one of us?” Nina asked, her voice thick with doubt.

“I don’t know, maybe!” He looked around at the nearby trees suspiciously, as if daring them to do something. “I wouldn’t put it past them! My point is we should stick together. In Dnd, you never split the party! Something bad always happens!”

“What’s Dnd?” Nina Asked.

“Nina, what did I tell you? Don’t take the bait-“ Mary was cut off as he started excitedly explaining the concept of tabletop games. “Mason! Focus!” She scolded. “If none of us dies, you can explain later. Right now, splitting up is the best option otherwise, it is going to take us hours to search the entire area. Okay?”

“Fine! But you’re gonna look pretty silly if Nina gets eaten by a tree!” Shot back in a sing-song voice.

“Hey! Why do I have to be the one who gets eaten?!” Nina asked with mock outrage.

“Because you’re the shortest. Duh!” He replied as if it was the obvious answer.

She crossed her arms, “I am not short!” She thought for a second and added, “At least I’m not ugly!”

“How dare yo-“ He started before seeing Mayry’s glare.

She smacked her hand into her forehead and then looked up at them exasperated, “Children! Break it up,” She pointed at Nina and then at him, “You go that way. You that way!”

Yes, Mother,” Nina said innocently before sticking out her tongue at him while Mayry couldn’t see.

“Mason, you really are a terrible influence on that girl.”

He flashed her a grin and then laughed as he walked off, leaving Mayry wondering if helping him save the world was worth all the hassle.