BlaiseCorvin
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Past Life Hero 2, ch 9
🕑 Added 2023-11-02 07:31:31 +0000 UTCThe sword in Max's hand felt far less solid than it ever had before as he crouched in the dark. While the weapon had served him well and was still in relatively good shape–he'd always protected it with mana and kept up with maintenance–it was lacking now. He needed something better as a two-star mana body Blade Sorcerer.
He’d make do.
The darkness pressed in around him, but after all this time in the caves, it felt familiar. Max was entirely accustomed to this environment. Now he waited patiently for all of Lavinia's spirits to come back with their reconnaissance report.
His skill at using the spirits to gather information had improved by leaps and bounds. The days of stumbling around blind, like while initially exploring the Cradle of Giants dungeon outside, were over. Hopefully.
He glanced to the left at the chasm that separated this area of the faun caves from the ledge where he'd basically been living. He had a strange urge to form a pair of gliding wings with Lavinia's spirits and try descending to the bottom. He’d resisted the urge.
There were multiple reasons why that would be a dumb thing to do. Just because he visited out-of-the-way places didn't mean there would be anything notable there. And more importantly, he might not be able to come back. Dungeons, even rank five dungeons like this one, could still be surprising and extremely dangerous for the unwary.
Max crouched behind a rocky outcropping that probably wouldn't have been a good enough hiding place before all the fauns had moved out of the open and into the caves. But now, it was fine. The only faun presence in what used to be one of their large encampments was a roving band of guards that Max observed as they watched the surrounding darkness with obvious nervousness.
They were searching for Max. Waiting for his inevitable return.
Finally, Lavinia popped into existence before him, showing herself to his eyes only, and Max received a concentrated blast of information. His communication with Lavinia had been getting much better lately, probably because he was capable of receiving and understanding information much quicker. Having a two star mana body helped everything move faster, including his mind.
After this new update, now Max knew everything that Lavinia's spirits had discovered. She nodded at him once in acknowledgement and Max nodded back before she disappeared again.
The spirits had been thorough, not only scouting the surrounding tunnels but trying to get a good understanding of the larger layout of the caves. At this point, escape was no longer Max's greatest priority. With his new level of power, merely escaping would not be that difficult. Instead, Max planned complete eradication of the fauns. He needed the mana unit resources, and they were far too dangerous to leave alive.
On both arms now, he had several bracelets he'd made that all sported at least a dozen beads each. Some of the bracelets had beads that were all of one type and others were mixed. Now that Max had worked a bit more on his Bead Sorcerer abilities, he could tell at a glance or even by feel which was which. He had at least a hundred new types of spell beads and had also learned new triggers. His favorite was one that required intentionally channeling a bit of mana into the enchanted bead before it would be armed.
The amount of mana that he could push into a bead had increased and his overall control had also gotten better. But the greatest improvement he'd made was with general Bead Sorcerer theory–understanding the basics. His surface understanding earlier had been correct. Now Max better understood the limits of just skill. In the absence of Ambient mana, like in this dungeon, all of the power for his beads would have to come from within. When Max was stronger, using his own mana would not be too big of a deal, actually. The way he cycled his mana made it infinitely regenerate.
He’d confirmed it.
And it did make sense, because even if he ran out of power in the past, he could always just rest or wait for it to come back. Max had always intuitively known that some of this ability was internal, but this was the first time he'd really had to explore the basis behind it. After all, on Albion, mana was plentiful.
Unfortunately, some Bead Sorcerer constructs, imprints, really did require a lot more mana than Max currently had. In fact, some of them were even relatively simple enough for him to make right now, but just needed too much power. That was frustrating, especially since he was trying to arm himself for multiple fights.
At a minimum, he had to deal with the fauns, then the giants, and then whatever was waiting for him back in the Quartet. With the information fresh in his mind, Max reviewed his new intel and planned how he was going to subjugate the fauns. He reasoned that they didn't probably leave their cave system to go out in the giant-infested forest, at least not very far or very often.
Even so, once Max started this fight, he didn’t want any fauns running away. He was planning to use this cave system as his base of operations and didn’t want any of the monsters coming back for revenge later.
It also meant if he had the ability, he didn't want to damage the caves too much.
He waited for the next patrol of fauns to pass, watching them as they moved around, their torches burning as they checked the handful of standing torches around the cavern, all creating their own little pools of light. The guard shifts maintained them.
Max watched until they eventually left. He knew from careful observation that the next round of guards would be by in another one to ten minutes. It was time to act.
As he ghosted up to one of the seemingly dark and empty tunnels leading deeper into the cave system, Max felt grateful for Lavinia's amazing intelligence reports. Having invisible incorporeal spies that could go practically anywhere was a tactical advantage that he would never want to do without again. Because of the spirits, Max knew that the tunnel he was currently facing only looked dark because of a turn and leathers being hung from the ceiling.
In actuality, this was one of the rooms that the guards bunked in and was this close to the cavern so they could more easily run patrols…or be ready to fight Max if he attacked again. It was also designed to catch him unawares if he tried to sneak in. But even if Max hadn't initially been surprised by a faun trap before, Lavinia had already told him about the couple deadly traps in this short stretch of hallway.
Max easily avoided the traps, made easy since he already knew where they were, and crept up to the covering blocking the tunnel. Then he took hold of one of the beads on his wrist and with a slight bit of effort, a bit of focus, he pulled the enchanted bead right off the string. This was one of the stranger abilities a Bead Sorcerer could awaken and one that Max was incredibly grateful for–allowing him to much more easily prepare his weapons and use them quickly.
He tossed the bead in his mouth and swallowed. Seconds later, he felt the effects were taking hold. Then, he removed two more beads from his bracelet. He moved the thick leather covering ahead in the tunnel aside and tossed both beads into the room. Wish it was stronger, he thought. Poison gas would have been better, but powerful effects like that would have to wait until he was a bit more advanced as a Bead Sourcer.
What he’d just used would work, though. The stench that he just created would definitely not be pleasant for the fauns inside. He could smell the tiniest bit it around the edge of his bead-granted protection, until it took full effect.
The sound of retching, coughing, and sudden panic came from behind the curtain. Time to go. Max pushed the hanging leather aside and sprang into the room, his sword delivering flashing death.
He was on a time crunch. Eventually, a fuan was going to sound the alarm, and Max wanted to do as much damage as possible before starting a deadly game of cat and mouse. He slaughtered his way through the handful of awake, but mostly still half-asleep faun soldiers.
Suddenly, the alarm sounded. Max tsked. One of them must have gotten away.
He paused, quickly processing the new burst of information that Lavinia sent him and ran through an opening on the far side of the room, taking a right through the hallway. There were an awful lot of fauns charging in his direction, but now that Max had some limited ranged attack abilities, and a much faster, easier way of getting intel, the monsters were going to have a very, very hard time even finding him, much less stopping him.
In some ways, the fact the creatures had moved deeper into the tunnels, although dangerous to Max with a one-star mana body, were advantageous to him now with a two star mana body. He felt a thrill run up his spine, equal parts fear and excitement. This was do-or-die at this point. Max assumed that if he ran away and went back over the chasm again, the fauns might just cut their losses and trigger cave-ins for every tunnel leading to where he was living.
Retreat was probably not a good option unless he found another handy area of the cave system that only he could reach…and that was highly unlikely. No, this was going to be a long fight.
Max was prepared for it.
Comments
Joshua LaBarge
Tftc
Milton Skipper
woot thanks for the chapter, now back to the land of bah humbug.
