It was almost sad how easy it was. Levi studiously avoided anyplace with lobsterocs roosting, which meant the local mountain and the nesting plateau toward the center were no-fly zones, but the entire northwest section of the dungeon was hills populated mainly by roaming packs of kalvex.

It took a few tries to perfect their methodology, but finally settled on a stable pattern. Lash would try to freeze the target kalvex. If it worked, they'd hover in place and fire down at it. If not, they'd chase it around a while and fire down at it with fewer hits.

It only took three of these before Levi received the notification he'd been waiting for.

Lash has reached level 10!

Soul-Seeker threshold 2 attained.

Evolution threshold advancement progress: 2/6

Lash has 1 stat point available.

Lash has 3 ability points available.

The most immediate benefit of this was that Lash's health, mana, and stamina immediately refilled to full, cutting a solid half hour off his recovery. Even for that alone, the side trip was worth the time.

The first thing Levi did was put Lash's stat point into Psyche. It was tempting to add it to Strength, which would cut Lash's recovery time from close to an hour and a half to just over an hour, but at this point they were working on limited time. If Lash was injured severely again they wouldn't have time to wait.

The Psyche point brought his mana from 780 all the way to 900, which would mean he could use Controlling Gaze for up to six minutes without stopping, and after that another ten seconds for every minute he spent recovering.

Next, he looked over the ability options he could choose from.

Available Soul-Seeker Abilities

Weaken Mind

Attacks gain a disruptive mental effect, temporarily lowering resistance.

Unlock: 1 ability point

Rubberhide

Body gains a protective coating, making it more resistant to physical attacks.

Unlock: 1 ability point

Multiblade

Adds two additional tails.

Unlock: 1 ability point

Sleeper Agent

Infects the target with a subtle influence that will spread over time to any others in its vicinity. Infected targets will have decreased aggression toward the caster and its allies.

Unlock: 1 ability point

Lash had two of the same options as before, Rubberhide and Multiblade, but while they seemed like useful utility options neither one did anything that would really play to the soul-seeker's strengths. More options to mitigate its weaknesses if anything. If Levi were focusing on a group of soul-seekers exclusively, then having additional defence or physical damage for some of them would be necessary. But he had a mixed group of minions, and hand to hand wasn't the reason he needed Lash, nor was high survivability ever going to be the soul-seeker's strength.

The other two options, however, were much more in line with what he was after. Weaken Mind seemed like a mini-dismay option, while Sleeper Agent had a very interesting spreading subdue power. Levi hadn't encountered such an ability before now, but if these were the sort of abilities Control creatures had at their disposal even at this low level, the stories of whole raid groups of hundreds going into a Control dungeon and never returning made a lot more sense.

He could easily imagine it: a few people injured by tendrils lashing out from the darkness, retreating and huddling together. None of them realizing that growing apathy toward their enemies was slowly spreading among them, while the dungeon monsters lurked in the shadows and waited until their edge of alert wariness was entirely gone...

Levi pushed away the imagined scenario and put a point into unlocking Sleeper Agent. Especially as dungeons grew more populated, having something like that would be helpful. And... his mind dancing forward to the endless packed together hellhounds of the first invasion, this ability seemed the most likely to be able to slow their progress in large numbers over time.

As tempting as it was to put everything there immediately, he also had to consider his current circumstances. It wouldn't do him any good to have a plan for three months from now if he was dead three hours from now.

Weaken Mind was too tempting to pass up. The ability for a minion to deliver dismay-like mental effects with attacks, even if more temporary, was worth the point. And he wanted to see what other abilities would be unlocked behind these next threshold. The mental attack lines were worth pursuing.

One point left to spend, he first looked back over Lash's current abilities.

Lash Abilities

Controlling Gaze

Adversaries that meet your eye may be subjected to your mental assault directly.

Cost: 25 mana every 10 seconds.

Blade Lash (2)

Turn tail into thin sharpened lashes for temporary melee combat. Longer duration further amplifies the blade effect.

Command

Able to temporarily override control of weaker minions in the vicinity. Non-allied minions may have a chance of resisting.

Cost: 120 mana

Then dove into the submenus to see each ability's upgrade options. Some had two choices, others only a static increase, but it never hurt to check.

Controlling Gaze: Decreased Cost (0/5)

Decreases the activation cost of Controlling Gaze by 20%

(Upgrade: 1 ability point)

Controlling Gaze: Increased Power (0/5)

Increases the strength of the Soul-Seeker's mental assault by a slight amount.

(Upgrade: 1 ability point)

Controlling Gaze was the soul-seeker's core base ability. Its cost wasn't prohibitive, given Lash's ability to increase both mana available and mana regen at a truly astonishing rate, so if he were going to upgrade it increasing its power was the obvious option.

Even if a 'slight' increase didn't sound particularly inspiring, Lash's current ability was already incredible. Adding to it would only be a benefit.

He couldn't help but wish there were a way to make it multi-target; having Lash's full attention entirely focused on a single enemy to the exclusion of all else was not ideal. If it had an upgrade option like that, he'd have jumped on it immediately. As it was, he mentally tagged it as a possibility and moved on to the next.

Command: Retry

If the ability fails, triggers an immediate second attempt with a flat 10% chance of success at no additional mana cost. Can only trigger once in a 30-minute period.

(Upgrade: 1 ability point)

Command: Increased Scope

Penalties against higher level creatures are reduced.

Bonuses are added when the ability is used against lower level creatures.

(Upgrade: 1 ability point)

Command was high mana cost compared to Controlling Gaze, but didn't have the innate one-at-a-time limitation. It could be activated and not require Lash's full attention. But though it had potential its upgrade options felt a bit lacking.

A retry that could only trigger every half-hour, with a flat 10% success rate? Was that really worth spending a point on? He could only assume more points would bring the activation frequency and percentage chance up, but right now he didn't need to gamble on something with that kind of cooldown.

Increased Scope sounded far more useful, but would it be worth as much as some of the others? Command was so niche in its usage and burned through mana so fast - not to mention Lash's stubborn reticence to use it on command. Maybe another time, but for now Levi dismissed it.

Blade Lash wasn't in serious consideration, but he checked over its advancement options anyway, just for completeness' sake.

Blade Lash: Substance

Damage potential and holding strength of tails are increased by 20%.

(Upgrade: 1 ability point)

Blade Lash: Reach

Length of tails is increased by 35%.

(Upgrade: 1 ability point)

If he ended up with many debuffs that could be applied by touch, that second option would be worth keeping in mind. Increasing Lash's effective range for things like Weaken Mind or Sleeper Agent could be useful. But for now, he passed it over.

He wavered between increasing Controlling Gaze, Sleeper Agent, or Weaken Mind. He wanted all three, but with only one point left to spend he'd have to make a choice one way or the other. As much as he wanted to increase Controlling Gaze, it was doing its job well enough for now. Sleeper Agent had incredible potential over the long term.

But it was Weaken Mind that kept drawing his focus time and again. Right now - and pretty reliably over the course of his entire time as a Tamer - the most dangerous and frustrating part of every fight was slowly chipping down the target's health and will again and again with Dismay. Having something Lash could rapidly apply in high quantity to provide a similar effect would be a game-changer.

Even more so in this particular situation. Having seen the Roc-Lobster's stats for himself, he had come to the conclusion that he needed something better. If they could get a plus, that would dramatically increase his chances of surviving this insane plan of his. Against a plus, any way to bring it in faster would be a major benefit.

Decision made, the last point went to Weaken Mind. He could upgrade the others another time.

Lash: Level 10

(Soul-Seeker +)

Strength: 2

Health: 610/610

(+5/min)

Psyche: 7

Mana: 900/900

(+30/min)

Spirit: 1

Stamina: 85/85

(+4/min)

Lash Abilities

Weaken Mind (2)

Attacks gain a disruptive mental effect, temporarily lowering resistance.

Cost: 4 mana

Duration: 10 seconds

Sleeper Agent

Infects the target with a subtle influence that will spread over time to any others in its vicinity. Infected targets will have decreased aggression toward the caster and its allies.

Cost: 25 mana