Chương 86: Lore And Levels

My tail flicks behind me in profound appreciation. Avelyn has officially graduated from mildly intriguing to genuinely interesting over the course of the past hour. The differences between our racial mutations are especially notable. As are the implications attached to them. Initially, I assumed the Holy Aspect would function in a more traditionally divine manner. Gods. Blessings. Smite-first-ask-questions-later type behavior.

Instead, it appears specifically designed to oppose corruption, demonic influence, and instability. Which immediately raises several extremely important questions. Namely: what exactly qualifies as "corruption?" Would a plague count? What about a parasitic organism invading a host? Extreme mana mutation? Aggressive fungal infection? Questionable stew? The wording also repeatedly references "unnatural impurity," which somehow manages to sound incredibly important while explaining absolutely nothing at all.

And I absolutely did not miss the "demonic influence" portion of Hallowed Sense either. Interesting. Very interesting. An absurd amount of useful information was packed into a single Evolution and Class Advancement. Not only did I gain some vaguely useful lore implications, but Avelyn's new skills are also legitimately powerful. Obviously not on the same level as some of my own catastrophically balanced nonsense, but still extremely impressive. Hallowed Ground in particular is absurdly valuable.

It's an area buff that remains active continuously until manually canceled, which means Avelyn doesn't need to waste brainpower refreshing it. Its range is roughly forty meters, which is admittedly somewhat unfortunate considering the speeds that me and Rin operate at, but in tighter formations it becomes extremely powerful. Especially because it stacks with Blessing. Double buffs. Excellent. Our support capabilities have now officially entered "mildly unfair" territory. Sanctified Spear, meanwhile, is…

decent, I suppose. It is a massive improvement over Radiant Lance and likely gives Avelyn enough offensive power to properly threaten crawlers independently now, but it still falls short compared to me, Sylrae, Marek, or Rin. She would probably outdamage Zeke though. My condolences to him. Imagine specializing as a damage-focused fire mage only to get outperformed by the healer. Tragic.

To be fair, the mana costs attached to repeatedly using an Epic-rarity attack skill appear fairly brutal, so he still retains the role of primary burst damage dealer. Me, Sylrae, and Rin all specialize more heavily in sustained pressure and continuously shaving off health rather than large explosive attacks but still…

Given the frankly unreasonable stat growth Aspect-Aligned races receive—not to mention the class rarity difference—I strongly suspect Avelyn will outdamage everyone besides me and Rin within the next ten levels or so.... Maybe. I haven't really seen any attacking class skills from anybody so far, so perhaps I am incorrect in that assumption. Actually, speaking of stats, I have noticed something mildly strange regarding the party overall. Their attributes are significantly higher than I initially expected.

Realistically, I should be massively ahead of them statistically thanks to my race, title, and the dragon meat I consumed. Yet the gap is not quite as absurd as it should be. I figured out why fairly quickly, however. Monsters, naturally. The first time someone consumes a monster of their own tier, they gain a small permanent stat increase from it. Which means long-time adventurers gradually accumulate passive stat growth simply through eating enough horrifying wildlife over the years. Reasonable.

As experienced adventurers, nearly everyone in the party besides me and Avelyn has accumulated a respectable amount of these bonuses over time. Which would be impressive... if you ignore the fact that these people have apparently spent years fighting monsters and are still only on the lower end of Tier Two. Tragic. Apparently the jump between Tier One and Tier Two takes normal people significantly longer than it took me. Shocking, honestly.

A large amount of their experience gain apparently comes from training and practice rather than solely murdering local ecosystems. Which brings me to another extremely interesting detail. Training under someone more experienced than yourself grants experience as well, assuming the training is genuinely useful. Meaning a master swordsman training a novice would help them gain levels, improve their eventual Class Advancement, and influence their future class chain toward similar fighting styles.

Which is apparently exactly how Avelyn obtained a Rare class in the first place. She is the daughter of a minor noble in Bramblegate—the nearby town—and received training from an experienced healer before advancing to Tier One. I was tragically forced to stop Avelyn from giving me spoilers about Bramblegate as we traveled between crawler encounters.

Apparently, "I want to experience the city naturally" is considered a perfectly reasonable stance by everyone except the newly evolved Holy Foxkin vibrating beside me with the uncontrollable enthusiasm of someone who has finally discovered a shared hobby. Unfortunate. The dungeon clearing process has accelerated dramatically now that our support capabilities have doubled.

Whenever we encounter a crawler pack now, we promptly descend upon them with overwhelming force and deeply unnecessary theatrics before continuing onward through the caves. Honestly, our combat efficiency has become mildly concerning. Levels begin ticking upward across the party over the next two hours. Avelyn and Zeke gain three. Myself and Sylrae gain two. Meanwhile Marek and Rin—the highest levels in the group—only gain one. Reasonable.

I also learn during this time that the next skill selection occurs at level sixty-five, increasing in increments of fifteen afterward. Four total selections during Tier Two. Interesting. Tragically, I also learn that the first skill selection of every tier receives some kind of hidden enhancement modifier, which means I should probably not expect another Legendary option to casually appear unless I do something profoundly unreasonable again.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Which, admittedly, remains entirely possible. Still, this revelation does confirm something extremely important: My strategy of deliberately saving one skill selection until after Class Advancement is actually a genuinely genius move. By advancing first, I receive my super-enhanced skill selection significantly earlier than normal people with poor impulse control. Excellent.

I open my status menu while the party harvests mana cores from another violently dismantled crawler group and immediately funnel my newest level worth of points directly into Vitality. Milestone chasing waits for no one.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Stats Vitality: 506 [+84] Strength: 658 [+109] Dexterity: 1469 [+245] Perception: 1068 [+178] Charisma: 132 [+22] Free Points: 0 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ It is honestly deeply hilarious that my Dexterity continues increasing faster than my Vitality despite the fact that I have assigned literally every available free point into Vitality for a while now. At this stage, I appear to have boarded a runaway roller coaster composed entirely of speed and questionable decisions. …

Not that I would escape even if given the option. Dexterity is life. System administration complete, I rise from my seat atop a lightly frozen crawler corpse and stretch slowly. The silver-white light from my dahlia frames me perfectly against the dark cavern backdrop. Of course it does. I am the one controlling both its position and lighting angle, after all. Honestly, the flower should feel honored for the opportunity. Marek glances toward me afterward.

"All done?" I nod once.

"I am thinking we continue for another hour before resting for the night. Thoughts?" I tilt my head slightly. He's asking my opinion? That's… mildly strange. I shrug lightly.

"You are the leader." He nods at the affirmation anyway, and we continue onward through the cavern system. The next hour proceeds much like the previous two. Crawler packs emerge from walls. We catastrophically violate their continued existence. Mana cores are harvested. Repeat until ecosystem collapse. Unfortunately, I fail to gain even a single level during this stretch. Tragic. Still, it makes sense.

I had already been fairly close to level fifty-six when I rescued everyone earlier from aesthetically displeasing death-by-stone-jackal-horde, and it still took roughly another hour and a half to reach fifty-seven afterward. Meanwhile everyone besides Rin gains at least one level during this final push. Which leads me toward a deeply unfortunate conclusion. My class likely does not appreciate traditional mob farming. Which... fair enough, honestly.

I have spent nearly my entire existence in Asteria thus far fighting things at least slightly stronger than myself. And while the crawlers are technically higher level than me—their levels have climbed to sixty-four during our delightful extermination campaign—they are just so… weak. Satisfied with our gains, Marek finally calls for a rest. We locate a reasonably open cavern a short while later and begin setting up a rudimentary campsite. Or rather, I begin setting up a rudimentary campsite.

Everyone else, unfortunately, possesses approximately zero camping supplies beyond the armor on their backs and the weapons in their hands, courtesy of the unfortunate porter currently decomposing somewhere near the upper levels of the dungeon. I did purchase a few extra supplies from the Tutorial shop beforehand, but ultimately that only translates into three sleeping bags and two tents. The tents were expensive. Outrageously so, honestly.

Marek and Zeke both disappear into one of them shortly afterward to remove their combat gear, emerging several minutes later looking significantly more comfortable in the padded underlayers worn beneath their equipment. Reasonable. Everyone else either already possesses clothing designed for comfort or, in Sylrae's case, apparently lost a violent argument against the concept of fabric several years ago. Marek sends me a questioning glance. In response, I deactivate my battle dress.

My casual outfit settles over my frame, this time resulting in nothing but a raised eyebrow followed by some form of internal understanding. Seems the party actually knows about the existence of armament accessories. Convenient. Explaining is a pain in the tail. Although honestly, my battle dress is already absurdly comfortable, so this is only a marginal improvement. But it is the principle of the matter. Before anyone can comment, I turn toward Zeke.

"So," I begin smoothly, "how skilled are you at maintaining a sustained flame?" He pauses. Thinks for a few moments.

"…Fairly good?" he replies cautiously.

"Why?" I smile sweetly and pull a pan from my storage.

"Dinner." Zeke immediately looks deeply concerned. Then slowly side-eyes one of the previous residents of this cavern currently laying several meters outside our campsite.

"Don't tell me…" I roll my eyes. Not that anyone here can actually see the gesture properly. Hard to look into my eyes when they actively push your perception away from them.

"Of course not." I reach into my storage again and pull out the Twin-Heart Grove Stag instead. The enormous corpse slams onto the cavern floor with a heavy, meaty thud that echoes through the tunnels.

"If one of you assists me with butchering this properly," I announce, "I will cook for the group." Avelyn's eyes widen instantly. Nobody else reacts nearly enough. Tragic.

"Is that a Twin-Heart Grove Stag?!" I nod once.

"Correct. I encountered it earlier today and killed it."

"…By yourself?" She pauses, then sighs softly.

"No, actually, I guess I'm not even surprised anymore." My tail swishes smugly behind me. Correct response detected. Sylrae briefly interrupts from atop a nearby rock.

"What's a Twin-Heart Grove Stag?" Avelyn swallows slightly while staring at the corpse with the unmistakable expression of someone already mentally plating it in an expensive restaurant.

"It's a super rare mutation of a normal Grove Stag," she explains.

"They're really dangerous and almost never appear naturally. My father likes collecting and trying dishes made from powerful monsters, but even he hasn't managed to eat one in the past two years." Interesting. Apparently rich people also have achievement hunting instincts. I smile slightly at the group. Only mildly haughty.

"So," I ask smoothly, "do you accept?" Marek and Zeke immediately move into action. Apparently they are the only people present who know how to properly butcher an animal for food instead of simply excavating the mana core like raccoons discovering industrial mining equipment. Within ten minutes—a period of time I efficiently utilize by feeding twenty additional crawler mana cores into my ring and increasing its charge to a mighty 0. 3%—the stag is neatly butchered.

Most of the carcass promptly disappears back into my storage alongside the mana core. I leave behind the hide—surprisingly soft once the bark-like outer layer is removed—as well as several cuts of meat and a respectable amount of fat. Then I begin cooking properly. First: preparation. The venison is sliced thinly and carefully across the grain. Not because I absolutely need to do so, but because standards matter. Next come the vegetables purchased from the village. Potatoes are cubed.

Carrots are sliced slightly thick to keep texture. Cabbage is shredded. Each ingredient is placed into its own bowl created through quick crystalline manipulation. Technically, I can safely use crystalline constructs because they fit the visual profile of my "Prismatic" disguise. Soft creations like clothing or futons remain tragically unavailable unless I wish to immediately become suspicious. Unfortunate. Naturally, the bowls are suspended midair by vines wrapped around their handles.

This is partially for convenience. And mostly because it looks dramatically superior. Naturally. I turn toward Zeke afterward.

"Heat." He nods confidently and ignites a sustained flame beneath the pan. … My ears flatten slightly.

"Lower." The flame decreases. Still too high.

"Lower." It decreases again.

"… You are attempting to cook food," I inform him patiently, "not smelt industrial ore." Eventually, after several increasingly restrained corrections, we establish a workable temperature. Progress. First, deer fat goes into the pan to render. The rich smell spreads almost immediately through the cavern. Then come the potatoes. I leave them mostly untouched at first, allowing them to properly crisp before cooking through internally.

Avelyn is already watching me with the intensity of someone witnessing divine revelation. The carrots go in next. The pan crackles loudly as I stir occasionally, allowing proper browning to develop across the vegetables. The smell filling the cavern at this point becomes legitimately dangerous. Several tails begin moving involuntarily. Avelyn's included. Especially Avelyn's. The atmosphere reaches critical levels once the thinly sliced venison hits the pan.

A burst of steam erupts upward alongside the sharp sizzling sound of rapidly searing meat, instantly flooding the cavern with the rich scent of cooked venison and rendered fat. Even Rin stops pretending he is unaffected. Thin venison cooks quickly, so I keep it moving constantly, stirring just long enough for proper color to develop while leaving the center faintly pink. Then the cabbage goes in. It immediately begins collapsing into the mixture with an impressive level of structural cowardice.

Once everything finishes cooking, I remove the pan from the heat and continue stirring while splashing a small amount of water into the mixture from one of my waterskins to capture some of the good stuff stuck to the bottom of the pan. The result is a light glaze that coats the vegetables and meat beautifully. Unfortunately, I have to be somewhat conservative with the water usage.

The contents of my waterskins currently represent our entire available supply until we reach the mini-boss layer, which supposedly contains a freshwater lake. Meaning dehydration is, regrettably, a logistical concern. Salt and pepper are added last. Just enough. And with that, a simple venison hash is complete. I plate the food for the party while everyone performs an absolutely catastrophic job pretending not to be excited. Zeke looks deeply smug about his contribution to flame control.

Avelyn keeps subtly sniffing the air every few seconds, in a way that feels weirdly polite. Rin is attempting to maintain emotional distance while visibly tracking the movement of the pan with his eyes. Even Sylrae and Marek—the more composed members of the group—look openly eager at this point. As they should. My vines distribute plates efficiently around the cavern before I seat myself beside Avelyn atop a nearby rock. Everyone settles into their usual spots shortly afterward.

Sylrae even remains down here with us instead of hiding in the ceiling this time. Then we finally begin eating. It is… acceptable. The limitations imposed by Zeke's heat control prevented perfection, but the final result is still hearty, balanced, and deeply satisfying after hours of combat. A respectable effort. Eight out of ten. Barely passing. A system notification appears during my second bite.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Initial Consumption of Tier 2 Twin-Heart Grove Stag Meat Confirmed Vitality +3 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ I examine the stat gain thoughtfully. Lower than ideal, but expected. The stag likely specialized more heavily in magical attributes than physical ones, which unfortunately means a portion of its stat value was effectively wasted on me due to my complete and ongoing refusal to possess mana. Tragic. Still, stats are stats.

The rest of the party quickly begins praising the food with varying levels of enthusiasm. As they should. I am, after all, a genius. Cooking an excellent meal thousands of kilometers into a monster-infested cave system is therefore completely reasonable and expected behavior. My tail swishes smugly behind me while silver light from the dahlia flickers softly across the cavern walls. For the first time since entering the dungeon, the atmosphere feels… comfortable. Peaceful, almost.

A temporary little pocket of warmth hidden deep beneath the earth. Interesting.