After doubling up on the repair and testing the strap I finally managed to head off through the winding ravines and hills. I had a few hours until dark and wanted to find a good place to hold up for the night. After a few minutes, I started hearing rustling in the brush around me. At first, my mind went to Fiona having found me but I quickly rejected that idea. I set my bag down and prepared my staff. Out of the thick undergrowth came a large boar. It noticed me and grunted a challenge as it pawed the ground.Tusked Boar | Level 5"F-you piglet I've had a bad day," I said in response, and the beast charged.I waited until he got up a good head of steam and cast Earth Fist right in his path. The beast slammed headfirst into the spike of earth and made a terrible squealing sound. I no longer had a gun since my pistol ran out of ammo and I was forced to leave the rifle behind at the library so I just bashed the beast over the head repeatedly until it went quiet, which took longer than I
Oh god, my hands ached, my body ached, and I was going cross-eyed from all this carving and crafting. Despite the aches and pains, I had finally managed to get my rune crafting skill up enough to eke out a 4% flexibility boost most of the time and a three percent in the rest, making sure those plates went to non-critical areas on my armor. Turns out runes are very sensitive to the overall depth of the carving and having that depth as consistent as possible increased the effectiveness of the runes. I was sure I was just barely scratching the surface of what runes were capable of.Because of the hard work, I earned the skill armor crafting as I assembled the roughly shaped Chitin Jerkin, using my old jerkin as a template of sorts as well as a backing material. The plates were quite heavy; I mean what had I expected from rock centipede armor coming in at around 15 pounds. I did have to sacrifice a shirt to cover the hole in my leather but it was worth it.Rune crafted leather-backed chit
As I crossed the threshold of the cave I got a new message.You have entered The Chitin Horde: Level 5 dungeon. Recommended team size 4 people of level 6 or higher"Well I did want to level up, might be just the place I needed," I sighed and gripped my staff, "Maximum effort."***I smashed the last centipede of this group into the ground and took a breather. This was the third wave I fought off so far and I had nearly died in the first wave when I tried to use my new Seismic Strike not realizing it was a two-part spell. The second wave hit me before the spell cooldown refreshed and I choose to go without the skill for the third wave, instead deciding to utilize Stunning Gust. I backed out to the cave entrance to buy myself more time before the next wave hit so I could look over the skill description in detail. I would have to remember to acclimate the spell knowledge I learned in the future instead of just assuming all of my spells acted the same
It was still quite expensive versus my Wind Walk spell but I was glad nonetheless. Even my venerable Earth Fist got a decent bump in damage ability going from the .25 modifier bonus to the .34 which was quite an increase. That bumped the damage potential of Earth Fist from 108 to 144. It was my single most powerful ability to do constant damage at the moment. It also had versatility as a speed-boosting platform if I could train some more with it that way. Now that I was level 8 I wanted to see what my health, mana, and regen rate were at with the boost to the modifier.HP: 432(475)Mana: 432Mana Regen(M): 126Excellent, I was now recovering my mana at 2 per second. It was getting to the point where I would be able to use my cheaper abilities nonstop during a fight without having to worry too much about running out of mana. While I was going over my stats I noticed my icon lit up letting me know Area of denial was reset and it was now time to put
After clearing the dungeon, I slept a good nine hours before I awoke to the chime on my windup watch going off, it was turning out to be one of the best items I owned. Stretching, I got up and got my gear ready.I wanted to stick around and see what happened to a dungeon after it ceased to be, instead of just reset like Frathsar said they should do but perhaps that was only for normal dungeons and not the horde style. So I made my way to a nearby small hill, to wait the last few hours.As the time ended the ground started to rumble a bit and dust poured from the dungeon entrance before the whole section collapsed in on itself."Well that was anticlimactic," I said, getting up from my spot and moving back south along the winding ravines.It took me all day to cross The Scar, mostly because of a few weak monster encounters I had to deal with and one very large one that I had to hide from. There were also the switchbacks and dead ends.Now t
I decided to risk it; at worst I believed I could escape this group. I stood up slowly from behind the house and the group instantly spotted me gripping their weapons tight. I kept my hands high as I approached the group stopping well away from them, mostly because they told me if I got any closer they would shoot me, rude."Hold it right there stranger," Frank said, pointing a shotgun at me.I wasn't overly worried about the shotgun, and I was even close enough to get a read on the group.Frank Castallino | Rider | Level 4Perry 'Squirrel' Mathis | Scout | Level 3I couldn't see the other names as they were outside my range but I expected similar levels to these two. My anxiety ratcheted down at seeing the levels."Whoa there, just passing through, trying to go south," I said calmly. I knew from before the System this area had an uptick in Meth and biker gangs in the last decade and if that's who these people were I didn't want
The rest of the day was uneventful and I managed to find an abandoned hunting shack to spend the night. It wasn't very warm but it was off the ground and had walls on four sides. There was no door but an old blanket was slung over the opening, keeping most of the weather out. I thought it a bit weird that I hadn't encountered any monsters this way. It's almost like the land had been cleared of anything hostile.I decided to string up some of my improvised chitin plate alarm systems to warn me in case I had a visitor in the night. I wasn't tired yet and there was a bit of light left so I decided to study my rune books some more. I felt that runic magic could be a force multiplier that few would suspect if I could master it. It also synergized well with my Mantra based magic. After a while of reading, I got a notification.Congratulations you have studied runes to the extent that the accumulated knowledge has unlocked a specific tab in your character sheetI
I wasn't quick enough to avoid the blow entirely and the Orc's nasty curved sword sliced a long furrow in my bicep. I winced at the pain, instead of crying out. Which says a lot about the amount of pain I have received lately. Grabbing my staff I whirled around having to recast Flurry as it cannot remain active on an unequipped weapon and I struck out with my now nine punishing blows.The monster even managed to block one of the blows but his animal-hide armor-covered torso did little to blunt the force of my impacts as he staggered back spitting up blood. I followed that attack up with a quick Stunning Gust causing the creature to topple over. Checking my notices I saw it was still alive. I changed my focus to the second Orc, he had rearmed himself. I took this time while we sized each other up to get his stats.Charlok | Orc Hunter | Level 6This was surprising in and of itself, the only names I had come across had been on Intelligent creatures, not that