Chapter 44

Training and New Spells

The rest of the week and my final four-star dungeon dive went off without a hitch. Now all that was left was to improve my weapon skills enough to pass the next test of Miss Helen and to solo a five-star dungeon. Too go along with this I have been thinking about some new spells. I have added a few basic utility spells to meet the headmaster’s requirement of a new spell every three months, but I have not created a new offensive spell in some time. I have improved the existing ones which has helped immensely, but I feel I need more. In most stories I remember the main character always has some sort of ultimate move or spell to unleash. I do not know if I am the main character in a story or not, but I really feel that I should have at least one if not more super powerful spells that I can unleash to surprise others. I definitely will not show these to the headmaster.

I think I will travel and set up teleportation points at a few more four-star dungeons for the experience and when I come across a good deserted area I will make sure to mark it so I can use it as a spell creation area. I have a few ideas that I think will work out well. I am actually rather looking forward to seeing what will happen. If these spell ideas of mine work then the sheer destruction they are going to cause is going to be phenomenal. I am getting tingly just thinking about it.

Over the next month I have not dived into a dungeon once, but I have set up teleportation points at 15 “normal” dungeons and five “field” dungeons. The field dungeons are not actually dungeons at all but rather areas that have been overwhelmed by one or more monster species and thus are too dangerous for the other “sentient” races to live. Every few years one of the kingdoms tries to claim some of the land back. They usually succeed for a time. The problem is they may easily kill of the outside edges, but unless they have a geographic feature they can reinforce to hold out against a counter attack the gains they make are usually overwhelmed within 10 years of the reconquering.

Most of the field dungeons are rated at three-stars on the edges and then progressively are rated at higher stars the further you travel in to the contested areas. I have a plan though. I am going to run the ten four-star dungeons in about two weeks. I think that I get experience not only from the death of other beings, but from rising to any pressure that occurs in my life also. I have received more experience than I can logically account for since I have been attending the academy and I can only attribute that to working with Miss Helen. So if I push myself and go from dungeon to dungeon without a real large break it should increase the amount of experience that I receive. There is also something else that has been brewing in the back of my mind for a while that I might try out for a large boost in experience.

After I have conquered the ten dungeons I will then create my own giant spells of doom. I have three great ideas for those. If they work out, then I will start working on conquering some of the field dungeon areas. If I use the new spells, then I should be able to kill large swathes of monsters and reclaim a lot of territory for the different races. I do not know what shape the land would be in once my spells hit, so I will not announce it before what I am doing. If it works out and the land is still usable then I can always claim credit afterwards.

As soon as I finish up with Miss Helen’s Friday Exercise regimen of pain I teleport myself back into my tree of life sanctuary. People have been starting to comment on my tree lately. I guess it is one of the larger ones outside of the elven territories. Apparently it is the fastest growing one on record. I find that strange as I think a nation or even large city or tribe could easily transfer much more mana than I have over the last year to year and a half. Maybe the transfer skill is rarer than I thought or it isn’t usually paired with a large mana pool. Whatever the case may be, my tree has become a landmark. I don’t know if that is going to be a good thing or bad thing in the future. It might bring a little too much attention to my activities, but it is a little late to regret now. It is not like I can shrink it at this point. My tree is easily 200 meters tall and still growing.

You have to love magic. Without it this tree would never even come close to reaching this size, let alone in just 18 months. Once I have recovered from my training session I gather everything I need and teleport to dungeon number 1 on my list.

Welcome to Mines of the Minotaur. This dungeon is rated 4 out of 10 by the dungeon guild. Stay safe.

I decided on completing this dungeon first because I have always been bad with directions. I figured minotaur meant maze, and maze meant I would get lost.

Six hours later I teleported back to the entrance after defeating the main boss. That was easier than I expected. The entire dungeon was strength based and rather poor against magic. I breezed right through it. First one down, onto number two.

Welcome to Lightning Lizard Caverns. This dungeon is rated 4.5 out of 10 by the dungeon guild. Stay safe.

I wanted to do this one because it was one of the few that was rated at a half star. I think dungeons evolve over time, becoming stronger. This dungeon is obviously in the process from upgrading from a four-star to a five-star dungeon. I thought it would be an excellent test to see how close I am to being able to finish a five-star dungeon.

Well that was disappointing. I struggled with this dungeon immensely when I first started. Everything in it had a lightning shield you had to break through before you could damage it. If you damaged it when you were to close then lightning would jump from the monsters shield to you and electrocute you for some damage on top of whatever the monster did. I was about to turn around and try this dungeon again after I had gotten stronger when I discovered the weakness of this dungeon. Water. The monsters could not hurt themselves with lightning, but if they came into contact with water they grounded their shields out and it took a while for them to regenerate.

I found this nugget of information out by accident when I was fighting a lightning lizard level 110 and it stepped into a larger puddle. Poof instantly its shield was gone. After that I exploited the heck out of this weakness and just shot water balls at everything until the shields shorted out and then killed them easily. It even worked with the boss, a level 200 Lightning drake and its brood of followers. It was a glaring weakness that once discovered made this 4.5 star dungeon much easier. I think this will be my farming dungeon if I need quick funds in the future. Good drops, higher cores, and easy to exploit once you know the trick.

I managed the rest of my run of dungeons without any trouble. Level four-star is definitely not a challenge anymore. I should probably work on level five-star dungeons. Even if I finish them I do not have to tell anyone. I can just continue on and accumulate experience until I feel that I am ready. Next weekend is going to be spell training. The week after that I can try a five-star dungeon. Then another run on four-star dungeons and after that I can alternate until I feel ready for the field dungeons. Yep that plan should work.

After surviving another week of Miss Helen’s gruesome training it is time to finally try out some new spells. I haven’t really tried to create anything new and significant in a while. I just upgraded the older ones as I got stronger. This is going to be fun. I teleport out to the Heroneous Desert which is south of where Vulcan academy is by over three weeks of normal travel. This should be a perfect place to create and test out my new large area of destruction spells.

First up is my version of a cluster bomb. This spell will be slower, but I think its potential for destruction should be high. I imagine myself pouring mana into several floating orbs, then I add the image of me scattering the orbs around a large area. I imagine that nothing happens with the orbs until I give a command then they react like a fuel air explosion bomb. I cycle this image several times emphasizing the multiple orbs, coverage of an area and the concept that one type of mana provides fuel, one type provides lift, and one type detonates it on command. I bring a combination of nature for fuel, fire to light it off, and wind mana to float it and make it stronger. After cycling these images and feelings for long enough that I had thought I had failed and was about to end the session I am rewarded with a new spell.

You have created the spell Cluster Bomb.

Inspect Cluster Bomb.

Cluster Bomb: This spell when cast creates one floating exploding orb 50 cm across for every 100 mana put into the spell. The spell orbs last for 1 hour and will explode upon command. Each orb does an immense amount of destruction in a ten meter radius and lesser damage as the distance increases.

Excellent. This is very close to what I was hoping for. If I create ten orbs and then stagger them out 10 meters apart I can destroy everything in about 100 square meters or about 3 football fields of an area. Of course I have to create and then float them into place, but if no one knows what they are or if it is at night and I have time, then the potential destruction and area of effect will be huge.

Next up is my sudden impact kinetic strike of doom. Ok, I am going to have to work on the name obviously. This time I imagine myself pouring mana into a handful of large pebbles, then I add the image of me tossing them high into the air. I imagine a short time passing and then the stones which have grown to enormous size suddenly accelerate and launch themselves at the ground in a large area in front of me. I cycle this image several times emphasizing the growth of the stones and then the acceleration from on high and the devastating impact. I decide that a combination of creation, earth, wind, and destruction mana together would be a good source for this spell. Soon enough

You have created the spell Stone Shower.

Inspect Stone Shower.

Stone Shower: This spell when cast on small stones allows the stones to grow in size and accelerate at a great speed towards a target area in front of the caster. The spell costs 1000 MP for each 100 square meters impacted.

Fantastic, if I go all out this thing will cause devastation of over more than one square kilometer. Admittedly that will drain most of my mana, but the spell should be awesome. One more spell to go and then I can try all three. I imagine myself pouring mana into a low level cloud that slowly turns into an impenetrable fog surrounding me. Then I add the image of animals getting sick and poisoned, even dissolving in this fog. Just for extra kicks I add an image of electricity dancing through the fog. I cycle this image several times emphasizing the fog, poison and lightning. I bring a combination of nature and destruction mana for the poison, air and wind mana for the fog, and finally yellow lightning mana.

You have created the spell Shocking Poisonous Fog.

Inspect Shocking Poisonous Fog.

Shocking Poisonous Fog: This spell when cast creates a deadly poisonous fog that crackles with electricity. The spell costs 5000 MP for each hour of operation and covers an area of 500 meters cubed. Caster may choose to either double the area covered or double the duration for double the mana cost.

This was much better than I expected. At first glance this spell wouldn’t be able to cover as large an area as the others. However, I notice and am going to exploit two loopholes. I can keep adding mana to it to make it bigger and the area is cubed. Why is that important? If I lower the fog to only 100 meters high then the area it covers is five times as big. If I lower it to 10 meters which should be more than enough in most situations I can create a poisonous shocking fog that is 50 times larger. That is 25 square kilometers before I double the size with mana. If I get enough mana, eventually this spell could cover an area of hundreds of square kilometers and kill everything inside of it. This is just insane and I like it.