Chapters 108-109

Chapter 108

A world-ending explosion shakes everything and even Sabrina’s barrier, made of incredibly thick Mana, almost gets pulverized by the explosion.

The flash of light covered whatever happened to the boss, but as the curtain of smoke and debris dissipates, everyone looks at a crater that is at least ten meters deep, with absolutely no trace of the Boss anywhere.

Zibrek looks at the result of the explosion and then removes her own goggles.

If Jacob had Boomgar throw the bomb in any other way, the Regional Boss would have survived. Even if it had blasted half of its body away, there would have been a chance that the Boss would have simply regenerated. The fact that Jacob, instead, had made such a good decision, and, more importantly, had used all casters instead of melee fighters… He had deprived himself of Vyrrak and Asterion in favor of using the other Champions.

I wouldn’t have done the same. Not only I wouldn’t have been able to see the Curse, but it would have been too tempting to see the Great Races at work… together.

Zibrek has been trained by some of the very best of her race. She’s the envy of everyone—someone with the kind of capabilities that appear once in a millennia, a genius beyond comparison.

Yet, she has to admit that she does not have whatever eyes Jacob has. In fact, this exchange has just demonstrated to her that, while she’s still clearly much stronger than him in every other aspect, as a Guide, the Fake Champion is indeed the most capable of their group.

*

We take a small break and I send Vyrrak ahead this time to scout whether there are other major threats in this basin. I told him not to cross bridges or touch anything that looks suspicious. In any case, I can still easily analyze whether he’s affected by a Curse or not, which means we’d be able to retreat if we needed to.

I briefly look at the kill notifications and then I skip to my updated status.

I was using Heavenly Intuition during the fight to get as much levels and insights in my Skills as possible.

Name: Jacob Cloud

Class: Infernal Architect - Lv. 127 > 142

Core Skills:

Hellbane’s Sword - Lv. 34 > 40 (Platinum - Offensive)

Flame Slash - Lv. 37 > Lv. 42 (Gold - Offensive)

Flame Shield - Lv. 31 > 32 (Gold - Defensive)

Flame Armor - Lv. 23 > 26 (Gold - Defensive)

Flame Walk - Lv. 14 > 20 (Gold - Movement)

Infernal Veins - Lv. 28 > 34 (Platinum - Constitution)

The Grimoire Extraordinaire (Rainbow - Support)

Class Skills:

Furnace Core (Passive) - Lv. 100

Flameform Blueprint (Active) - Lv. 100

Infernal Thread (Passive) - Lv. 100

Ember Keystone (Active) - Lv. 1

Architect’s Insight (Passive) - Lv. 100

Hellspire (Active) - Lv. 100

Ignition Array (Active) - Lv. 2

Attributes:

Strength (STR): 300 → 315 

Dexterity (DEX): 314 → 344

Endurance (END): 200 → 215 

Vitality (VIT): 314 → 344 

Intelligence (INT): 600 → 660 

Spirit (SPI): 600 → 660 

Wisdom (WIS): 500 → 545 

Charisma (CHA): 18 → 18 

Luck (LCK): 10 → 10 

Unassigned Points: 35 → 110

Other Skills:

Minor Cookery Lv. 34 (Iron)

Minor Night Vision Lv. 32 (Iron)

Light Lv. 67 (Bronze)

Pickaxe Mastery Lv. 81 (Bronze)

Minor Mineral Sense (Bronze)

Mana Well Lv. 24 (Gold)

Echolocation Lv. 78 > 84 (Silver)

Heavenly Intuition Lv. 52 > 53 (Platinum)

Silver Grip Lv. 42 (Silver)

Advanced Endurance Lv. 87 (Silver)

Advanced Strength Lv. 52 > 56(Gold)

Infernal Wings of Ash Lv. 78 > 80(Gold)

Dark Lattice Lv. 78 > 79 (Gold)

Diavolo Draw Lv. 51 > 53 (Gold)

Dark Blade Lv. 38 > 40 (Gold)

Black Flame Lv. 15 (Fusion Skill - Platinum)

Blood of the Ancients Lv. 1 (Platinum - Constitution Skill)

“Zibrek?” I ask, after getting a good view of my Skills.

The Goblin girl, who’s examining her surroundings, turns toward me.

“A question?” I say with a smile.

She walks over with a slight frown on her face.

Jacob Cloud, she was supposed to lead this group of Champions. She’s a true Guide. Goblins are more reasonable than Infernals, but careful what you might say. She might want to stab your back in order to lead the pack of Champions. The benefits of being a leader of such a group are incommensurable in the long term. Imagine being a King and having long-time allies among the best of the Great Races and every Kingdom in the world.

Don’t worry, I tell King Baalrek. I’m not going to humiliate her. In fact, quite the opposite.

“Yes?” Zibrek says as she comes to stand in front of me.

“I am not an expert on Colossal Dungeons at all. I know Vyrrak wants me to lead the battles, but after seeing that Regional Boss, I think I need someone else at the front with me. Would you like to split the role of a Guide… if that’s even possible.”

Zibrek raises an eyebrow and nods.

“It’s not uncommon in large groups to have more than one Guide, Jacob.”

She just looks at me after saying that with a very intense gaze.

“Alright? Would you be my co-Guide, then?”

A smirk pops onto her face, “I shall do that.”

“Would you mind teaching me, too?” I say, slightly bowing my head, trying to show as much deference as I can. “I have so much to learn. My eyes are very good, but… I’m not really great at being a Guide for anything else.”

“I don’t like ruffians,” Zibrek says. “I’m not your Infernal Princess, Jacob. You don’t have to perform for me. We will fight alongside each other for at least five years. It’s in everyone’s best interest to make sure we’re all as competent as possible.”

“Right. Sorry.”

“Do not be. Did you know that there are Generations of Legends that were destroyed by their hubris and selfishness? But we were lucky.”

“Oh. How so?”

Zibrek steps closer and lowers her voice.

“We have an extremely weak, but also wickedly sharp Champion, who makes everyone feel better and more competent. Having such a catalyst in our group has actually achieved the goal of smoothing over the differences between everyone. Even prickly people like Vyrrak and Sabrina are brought together by their spite for you. And now, they’re even taking orders. You are a marvel, Jacob. If I could, I would open you up and study every single inch of your brain.”

Zibrek takes a step back and then smiles at me innocently.

I swallow and nod, a bit freaked out.

Never forget that Champions are not plucked from the common stock of their people, Cloud. She’s dangerous and she serves her and her people’s interests. Never let your guard down just because she seems less of a threat than the Dragonkin and the Margrave Princess.

Aw, are you saying that I’m special, too? I ask King Baalrek.

Yeah, I’ve seen few people being idiotic as you. Congratulations.

*

Once Vyrrak came back and I told everyone I wanted them to listen to Zibrek, she started explaining our next moves.

“We are here to clear up as many monsters as possible and to investigate what’s happening. We should slaughter every single monster that comes our way, but I’d advise not to waste too much time. The Tomb of Fate has six areas and they might take a few days to walk through each and every one of them. Without the Regional Boss, I suggest we set camp for the moment and have the weaker members of our party, not Champions, go get the kills. In the meanwhile, we let those who fought the Regional Boss rest.”

“What if the Cultists come our way and attack everyone else?”

“As long as they can’t single out a Champion, everything is good. That is why the Champion should never split. If it is the Cult of Asmodeus, they might try to abduct our people, but then, you don’t negotiate with the Cultists. Plus… I could see them if they came anywhere near us.”

“Really? So everyone would be safe going on their own?” I ask.

Zibrek taps her goggles and the belt at her waist.

“No one is coming close to us without me knowing. And no one’s getting Vyrrak.”

That’s how we spend the next half a day just sitting around, waiting for the Squires to clear up the basin. It’s not a bad plan… I’m happy that Lancelot and the Elves can get some more Levels, but I’m also quite jealous. I haven’t had the time to properly train my Skills after getting Heavenly Intuition, which is the reason why I try and make up for it now.

I focus on my Class Skills and I managed to get several levels in all of them.

The Class with Professor Veythra and upgrading Meditation twice really made a big difference.

Flame Slash (Gold - Offensive) - Lv. 42 > 61

Flame Shield (Gold - Defensive) - Lv. 32 > 65

Flame Armor (Gold - Defensive) - Lv. 26 > 70

Flame Walk (Gold - Movement) - Lv. 20 > 66

Then, I take a look at Infernal Veins and this time I really take my time.

[Infernal Veins - Analyzed]

[36 Skill Flaws]

List the largest Flaws.

[Two Critical Main Flaws Found.]

[Loop of the Burning Gate - The main circulation passes through Intercostal Ashen Veins in a clockwise pattern, but the return flow at the diaphragm, through the Great Wind vein should be circulated first through the following Heart Veins…]

I start reading the description which goes on for an entire page.

This is a very complex loop, I frown. I remember reading this and giving up even before trying. It was too much before. But now…

I activate Heavenly Intuition and, looking at the Grimoire’s instructions, I start circulating the Mana through the individual veins. I’m chopping up the entire loop, practicing every single part individually, but even then, it’s so hard. It requires an extreme level of concentration. This is the kind of Skill that I have never imagined I would have been able to practice, honestly. Before attending Professor Veythra’s Class and getting Heavenly Intuition, I would have never even dreamed of being able to accomplish something like this.

After several hours like this, I take a long deep exhale, finally feeling ready.

I start the real loop, putting everything together, shifting the kind of veins that I’ve used so far from the ones I’ve practiced just now. I pull on the Infernal Veins Skill, and this time I can feel the extreme strain of trying to fix this massive flaw.

However, as my body strains more and more, I direct the Mana ever so carefully, ever so masterfully, until it’s finally right where I need it.

And then, my next exhale carries a wave of stale air from deep inside my body.

When I open my eyes, I can feel it.

Infernal Veins Lv. 34 > Lv. 74

“There are Stone Wolves coming,” I hear Zibrek say. “There’s a large pack. I think it’s better if we let Asterion take care of it. He can probably kill them all without--“

“No,” I say, slowly rising from my seated position and cracking my neck. “I want to try something.”

Chapter 109

“They are too many for you alone. You need your Squire and the Elves, Jacob,” Zibrek says. “If you get hurt here, you’ll just slow us all down. Why do you want to take this risk?”

I turn toward the girl as I summon Hellbane’s Sword and the Dark Blade.

“I’ve just made some progress, trust me.”

Instead of activating Infernal Wings of Ash like I usually, do, I just activate Flame Walk and I use Flameform Blueprint to turn it into jets, speeding on the ground at even greater speed than I would have been able to with the wings. The wings are great when it comes to going in a straight line and aerial combat, but, on the ground, a movement Skill like Flame Walk is still superior thanks to its mobility.

*

“There are too many,” I hear Asterion say as he walks toward Zibrek. They stare at the large pack that is coming their way.

“Be ready to intervene,” Zibrek nods, adjusting the lenses on her eyes. “But he does look somewhat different. Look, he’s activated the Infernal Constitution Skill he has. Look at the horns… They’re more real now.”

“But he just used the same Skill when he fought the pack with the others helping.”

“What’s the lad doing?” Boomgar walks closer to both and now all the Champions gather in the same spot, curious to watch Jacob.

“He wants to fight the pack alone. Those are about sixty Stone Wolves…” Zibrek sighs.

Princess Iskara chimes in, “let’s just go help him. His ego must have been hurt from the last fight. He can’t even go level up alongside Squires because the Cultists might go after him. If they got a Champion on their own…”

“If he said he wants to deal with this alone,” surprisingly it’s Sabrina Margrave speaking, “then let him. He’s still a Champion and he was appointed as the Guide by us. Trusting him is the least we could do.”

Everyone looks at the Margrave Princess with a weirded look on their face.

“What?” she says. “Maybe getting hurt will also teach him a lesson. Stop looking at me like that!”

*

Malrik, who has been boredly waiting for the arrogant Champions to move onto the next region in the Tomb of Fate, is now laughing and slapping his knee while seeing Jacob charge at the Stone Wolves.

“Toran! Come, the Fake Champion is about to get killed!”

*

I skate in front of the first Stone Wolf, using both the Grimoire and Architect’s Insight, and then I unleash the Flame Slash. The attack, unlike the others, doesn’t just cripple the limb when it touches the weak point, but it severs it. Infernal Veins have pushed my own power past the Peak of Gold Rank and now fully into Platinum territory. It probably still is on the weaker side of it, but striking where they’re the weakest still gives me a large advantage.

I cut the first limb, then I skate under the Stone Wolf. There are very few things that I could enjoy more at the moment than the sensation of newfound power that I wield in my hands.

I can feel that there's an overwhelming power that I gained by fixing the greatest flaw of Infernal Veins. In fact, I am also surprised by the fact that just fixing one flaw gave almost fifty levels to the Skill. But then, when I used the Grimoire again to analyze Infernal Veins, it turned out that, apparently, fixing that one Skill didn't just fix the main flaw, but it also fixed a bunch of other ones. Infernal Veins went from having twenty-six flaws to having eight.

Fixing one major flaw like that had clearly an upstream regulation effect on everything else. Many minor flaws were fixed. And now, with the horns on my head much more material than before, I can clearly feel that I am ready to take on this challenge. After sliding under the wolf while using Flame Walk, I also use Flame Walk in order to propel myself forward. I can feel that its power has changed, it's not empowered by Infernal veins. Before, it wasn't this strong.  I get the second limb and then I slash upward at its neck as the monster is falling. I can't help but marvel at the fact that the Dark Blade slices through the thick skin of the Stone Wolf perfectly and severs its throat.

*

"He's stronger," Asterion notices, looking at Princess Iskara. "What happened?"

"I have no idea," the Infernal Princess says, looking at the 'Fake Champion' having completely skipped an entire Rank in power since he last sat down in the encampment. "There's nothing I could tell you that you can't see with your own eyes, Asterion. He seems to have developed a better control over Infernal Veins. That's a Royal-grade Constitution skill, though."

"He did show an increased control over his mana the last time we attended the Body and veins 101 Class."

"It still shouldn't be possible for him have such a breakthrough this easily," Asterion mutters. "He didn't go through a life-and-death battle, Zibrek."

"I know," the Goblin girl says, narrowing her eyes. "But let's see. It doesn't matter how strong he can swing his sword if he can only swing it once."

*

You know, Jacob Cloud, if you want to upgrade your Class to Platinum level, you must max all the Skills of your Class. Even the ones that you don't like using.

I know.

King Baalrek is right. And I can't just upgrade my Core Skills and ignore the two Class Skills that have seen virtually zero use up to this point. But that's exactly why I take a long breath and, using Flame Walk and Echolocation to dodge every attack from the pack, briefly using Infernal Wings of Ash if I need to, I then activate Heavenly Intuition and I summon the first of the two unused Skills from my Infernal Architect Class.

Ember Keystone.

I place several around us. But the most important thing is that before activating them I run them through Heavenly Intuition. Even without using the Grimoire, I can instantly feel the problems and I fix them, letting the Skill activate more and more smoothly as I use it. Ember Keystone uses the same exact veins that most of the other Infernal Skills use, and the fact that I've been practicing those relentlessly, especially with Professor Veythra's custom-crafted loop allows me to become much better at this without having to continuously rely on the Grimoire. Of course, if I wasn't in battle, I'd be using the flaw analysis, but I can't simply do that while facing an entire pack of Wolves.

I scatter several floating units of Ember Keystone. They look like blazing charcoals that don't bother the Stone Wolves, at least on the surface. But as soon as there are eight and I've been dodging enough attacks, I trigger all of them at once, relying on them to channel on them to channel one of my favorite Class Skills.

Hellspire.

Several lances of fire get stuck in the ground, the Stone Wolves look at them suspiciously before starting to attack me again and trying to rip me apart. But the longer an Hellspire survives destruction, the stronger its explosion is.

Moments later, I start detonating them one after the other.

I can feel Ember Keystone leveling up like crazy in the background, but I ignore it momentarily when I notice the aftermath of the Hellspires.

They're extremely resistant monsters, Cloud. You can't expect them to die against something like that. Your Hellspire doesn't have enough deflagration power to rupture their internal organs. You'll need a better strategy.

I swallow and I nod. I scatter more and more Ember Keystone and I hear King Baalrek sigh.

I said, you need a better strategy.

I know. Just watch.

*

"Why is he doing the same thing? Isn't he just wasting Mana?" Everyone present turns to see Kaelric the Orphan, the famed swordsman, one of the most mysterious Champions of their group, walking forward where all the other Champions have huddled and asking the question.

"I have no idea," Zibrek confesses. "It makes no sense. He tried that already. I don't understand why he'd do that once again. Maybe he's getting desperate."

"It appears so. The attacks are starting to overwhelm him. They bit at his armor twice already and he's been summoning shields too. He's got a decent amount of Mana, but if he continues like this, he can kill seven or eight of those at best before running dry," Asterion comments, dispirited. He's cheering for Jacob and would love nothing more than for the young man to become stronger. Yet, it appears like despite his jump in power, his Skills are still lagging behind.

*

As soon as there are enough Ember Keystones, I switch strategy. I summon Dark Lattice to pin a monster to my left and to my right, absorbing their Mana and vitality and making them both stumble. The next moment, I attack the one in front of me.

"Careful!" I hear Zibrek shout from the distance, but I just smirk.

With Echolocation I can see that one of the Stone Wolves has snuck up on me from behind and is ready to rip my head off. But he's also in one of the paths that I drew with my Ember Keystones.

One not-really-so-impressive Fire Slash slams in the lunging body of the wolf and sends him off trajectory, stopping the creature from being able to kill me.

Thanks to that interruption of their ganging upon me, I look straight at the Stone Wolf in front of me and, dodging a claw swipe, I first sever his leg and then stare at it straight in the eye, barely half a meter from its open maw.

"Bye," I say. "Diavolo Draw."

I activate the Skill and I slash at its throat's weak point, suddenly severing its head.

The Skill carries my momentum forward and if I hadn't stopped both the monsters at its side and the one behind me, I wouldn't have been able to pull this off without leaving myself fully open.

Impressive, Jacob Cloud. Impressive.

I repeat the strategy several times, mixing the use of Dark Lattice, Ember Keystones, and now using one more Skill to inflict more damage and cause chaos and mayhem among the monsters.

"Ignition Array," I mutter when I see many wolves starting to jump on top of each other. In the stampede, the sudden increase in temperature makes them howl in pain and temporarily distracts them. This is far from enough to kill them but it's enough to give me another opening to kill another Stone Wolf.

*

"His spatial awareness is..." Zibrek mutters. "It's incredible."

"Spatial Awareness?" Boomgar asks, confused. "What's that mean?"

"It's a Guide's most important Attribute," Asterion says, with his eyes never leaving Jacob's figure. "The greatest Guides are those that are able to individuate the weak points of monsters and create opportunities to exploit them. In a duel, power and speed are often the two most important things. That's why Guides can't usually rival Breakers when it comes to sheer strength and a one versus one confrontation. But when it comes to melee against monsters, it's different. The stronger the monsters, the rarer it is for a Breaker to be able to overpower a creature at their own Rank. That's why Guides are so important and why we use parties to face these creatures."

"I don't get it," Boomgar says, scratching his head. "The lad is a great Guide? That's it?"

"Not great," Zibrek mutters. "He's..."

"Jacob Cloud's spatial awareness, given that whatever Skills he's using to monitor the battlefield isn't that high in Rank, is otherworldly... but... he's about to run out of Mana."