Chương 71: The Moon

LANCE waited in his dorm room. He somehow doubted his father would show. He hadn't for the last three weeks, really making him wonder if he had done something wrong. Their last excursion had been tense, but it wasn't like his dad to hold a grudge. He would've sent him a letter, but the letter would take too long to arrive for it to be useful, and it was doubtful his father even checked postage. And so, being busy himself, and knowing his dad could stop in any time with his magics, Lance waited.

He waited every weekend morning, at the crack of dawn, to see if his father would be back for him and to take him on another training mission. He was about to give up for a fourth week when the chaotic ripples of portals forming tore into the air of his room. His heart leapt. Far quicker than normal, milliseconds instead of whole seconds, the portals formed and hardly caused a single sheet of parchment to fly from his desk. Out stepped his father who looked... better, brighter, than he had last time he saw them.

"Dad. I wasn't sure you were going to show up. Looks like I was wrong."

"Lance... sorry about the last few weeks. I haven't been myself, you see. I think I am better now. We should get a move on for your training. We have some lost ground to cover." Warhol swiped a few of his fingers and the color of the portal he walked through changed. It was gray, now, and emitted a strange odor.

"Oh," his dad turned to him.

"You'll need this," and incanted [Hold Air] and [Warmth] on him. Lance hadn't the time to ask where they were going before dear old dad shoved him through the portal. In a flash, they were on a rugged, dusty gray land with darkness all around. Craters marked indents throughout the rugged landscape. The only foilage he saw was strange rocky trees which were less 'trees' and more 'rock piles,' but he saw no reason why they couldn't be both in such a wasteland. Lance looked above and saw a blue and green marble.

The implication shocked him — "Dad!" he gasped.

"Are we on the moon?!" His father laughed.

"Of course, we are! Where else would we fight Moon Monkeys?"

"Moon monkeys?" he asked, slowly.

"Yes, son — moon monkeys! Creatures known throughout the universe for their brutish ways and sublime hatred of humans. Incidentally, we've just teleported into one of their dens. If you can hear that chittering, that's them gnawing their teeth as they rush us from those ugly ass trees over there." His father jerked his thumb over toward a tree where vaguely monkey-ish shapes were charging at them like hyenas on the plains.

"They're weak to water and ice. Though flame might do the trick, too. I don't know. It's been a while since I've fought them. Anywho, best of luck, son!" Warhol then turned himself invisible and left him to confront the horde of snarling death. Lance breathed in, then out. Harder to do on the moon than on earth, but that was beside the point. He willed his sword into the shape of a lance. After he ignored the obvious pun, he was ready to fight the monkeys. On the moon. A phrase he never thought he would utter.

Seconds later, the... moon monkeys were upon him. Only three for the moment but he heard others on their way; they looked only somewhat like monkeys, with the qualities of an ape more clearly in their evolutionary track: their coloration was gray to match the desolate landscape, and their muscles bulged with thick cordons; their teeth were blood red, which they bared at him with a tremendous ferocity. Lance thrust his lance forward and stabbed one of the 'monkeys' through their guts.

The monkey, however, gave no sign of caring. It pulled itself deeper onto his lance just to get closer to him, despite the sharpness of his pole widening the hole in its gut. The creature was fast enough that it was on him before he realized it wasn't about to stop and punched him once, twice, three times and tried to overwhelm him to continue its assault. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. It would take far more than a monkey punch to take him out.

Lance endured the powerful punches which would've shattered lesser men. He jumped backwards, evading charging attacks from the other two monkeys, and willed his lance back into his hand, where he next willed it to take the shape of knuckle-dusters. Maybe it said something about him, but he loved getting close and dirty with his fists. Lance stood his ground and shouted at the monkeys to come at him.

The monkey-apes pounded their chest in a war-like war then charged him; he reared back, one foot in back, one foot forward, then delivered as forceful a mega-punch as he could to the closest unfearful monster His fist hit home and punched clear through the monster monkey's upper chest, blue gore covering the gray landscape.

[You Have Killed Moon Monkey: You Have Gained XP] [You Have Reached Level 58] [You Have Earned Boon Points: 8] He slowly breathed out; the two other monkeys shrieked at him with all the rage and pain they were entitled to after one of their family or friends had been killed by an interloper such as he. He pulled his fist back and resumed the position. In the distance, a horde of monkeys roared in violent delight. One monkey earned him a level up. What would a horde give him?

One thing was clear — soon, the moon would be covered blue. Well, he should get to work, then. Before him, the two monkeys launched themselves at him, and he reacted in kind. The gray landscape was no more. Blue blood covered all for at least a mile.

Streaks of blue splatter covered more miles beyond that, a testament to the violence and its scale: fighting such a horde had taken everything Lance had, all his magic, all his physical endurance, not to mention his movement skills — gravity on the moon was not like back home, so his movements had more 'bounce' to them, a fact he had to account for in the brawl. At times during the fight, he had to retreat, strategically, to get some distance. He had used his fairy dust, his stamina potions. His grenades, even.

At yet, after, the monkey horde continued to charge down at him. his father had been right — water and ice inflicted critical damage on them and so he drew upon his [Absolute Infusion] Boon often to imbue his strikes with elemental magics. His magical strikes delivered the hard-hitting hurt he desired which saw monkey-victim after monkey-victim fall to his might.

That was when the splattering began, for although the ice-infusion would've caused their simian blood to freeze back on their home world, here, it only caused the blood to de-coagulate and splatter on a wider than usual arc. When the fighting was done and the horde broken, he had earned an impressive twelve level ups! He accumulated ninety Boon Points across those level ups which put his total at one-hundred-and-thirty-three. He was going to enjoy using these points!

Nothing made you feel more like a man than watching as your muscles grew and solidified themselves in your body, becoming denser, more agile, more... it was hard to explain, actually, what a Boon Point did to your body after you put one into Martial Prowess. But it was awesome.

Deciding against wasting time, Lance opened his menu and got to work allocating: [Name: Lance Chaucer] [Level: 70] [Martial Prowess: 100] [Magical Prowess: 25] [Stamina: 60] First, he decided on a full one-hundred Boon Points into his Martial Prowess. He had to think little about that; his time as a Paladin would demand deep investment in his martial abilities, so he ought to do as much as he could as early as he could. His muscles throbbed pleasurably.

They grew, yes, but it wasn't mere muscle growth which gave them definition from the Holy Boons. It was flexibility, recovery, reaction time, in a sense. A lot went into what improved about oneself when a Boon Point was applied. Second, and with thirty-three Boon Points to spare, he gave twenty Points to Stamina. The altercation with the monkeys showed him how taxing a protracted battle with a group of formidable foes could be.

He had burned through all three of his Stamina potions which was on top of his regular already hyper-elevated levels of stamina. If his father considered this 'just training,' he had to push himself further. Thirdly... he saved his remaining thirteen points. There would come a time later when he would need them. The Holy Shop always had something for him. He considered looking through the shop by offering a quick prayer when he heard his father speak.

"Enjoy yourself?" his father asked, becoming visible once more. He floated to the ground and looked upon the carnage with an upturned nose.

"Left things rather messy, I see. Just wait until your mother gets home!" Was that a joke? A lame joke, if so. He guessed it was nice to see his dad joking, again. Though he wished his humor improved.

"I think 'enjoy' was a strong word, especially when the creatures I was fighting only wanted me off their turf, but whatever." He took a moment to think about it.

"Yeah, it was fun... in a way."

"Good. Because you only have one training session left before I cut you lose."