Chương 89: Finally, Vitality

My eyes snap open instantly, ears twitching toward the sound that woke me. Avelyn reacts similarly, although in her case she practically launches upright from the sleeping bag like someone activated a hidden spring mechanism beneath her. I focus for half a second. Ah. Sylrae. The Wingkin woman is already awake, and the rustling of her escaping the sleeping bag is what disturbed both me and Avelyn. Tragic. Sylrae whispers a quiet apology before stretching her arms and wings in the pitch-black tent.

Avelyn immediately sinks back down into her sleeping bag afterward, clearly unwilling to abandon the comfort zone voluntarily. A completely reasonable response. I nestle back into my own cocoon as well, tail curling warmly around my body. Mr. Prickles II has somehow ended up in my arms once more. … Acceptable. A vine slips silently from my thigh, carefully unzips the tent flap, and snakes outside. A pulse of Astral Energy flows through it moments later.

My dahlia reforms outside the tent in a bloom of pale silvery light, softly illuminating the cavern through the fabric walls so Sylrae can actually see what she is doing. She thanks me quietly before finally slipping out of the tent after another long stretch. Both me and Avelyn remain exactly where we are. Naturally. Abandoning warmth voluntarily is for people with poor decision-making skills. The next to wake is Marek roughly ten minutes later. Then Zeke.

And finally Rin, who emerges with all the energy of a man personally betrayed by consciousness. The others begin quietly packing camp outside while me and Avelyn continue our highly important responsibilities involving warmth and dignity. I catch pieces of their conversation through the tent walls. Concern over how strong the monsters are becoming. Confusion regarding the complete lack of nighttime attacks. Several deeply inaccurate comments about "Foxkin laziness." Unacceptable. I am not lazy in the slightest.

I merely allow the world the privilege of waiting until I decide movement is worthwhile. Eventually—far too soon, in my professional opinion—the others begin growing restless. Seventeen minutes after Rin wakes up, specifically. I sigh dramatically. Beside me, Avelyn sighs as well. Solidarity. I slip Mr. Prickles II back into my spatial storage before Avelyn notices. Then we both finally emerge from our sleeping bags.

Avelyn immediately casts Purify on both of us before I even fully stand, golden light washing over the tent interior. Efficient. I hand her a hairbrush while moving slightly aside to change into casual clothes—the crimson and black outfit from when I first entered Asteria. The outfit tragically only enjoyed a few hours of existence before being replaced by post-bath attire. And considering I will likely spend most of today in my battle dress as well, its glorious return will once again be short-lived.

Deeply unfortunate. I like this outfit. … Avelyn is staring at me. Very closely. Honestly, fair. I am the most beautiful creature on the planet, after all. Admiration is the natural response. However… She is becoming a little too attached. … Useful, admittedly. Also mildly concerning. Emotional attachment tends to complicate social structures considerably. Still, maintaining said attachment could also prove advantageous in multiple ways.

I am admittedly curious what her next skill selection will look like once the "recent class advancement" influence applies itself properly, so careful management is likely the optimal strategy here.... Foxkin social instincts are profoundly inconvenient. This entire "social resource management minigame" situation likely would have remained much simpler had my body not betrayed me and petted her ears that one time. … They were soft, though. Still. Without that, this would probably only be admiration.

Possibly hero worship in a more dramatic case. Instead, the moderately interesting Foxkin I met roughly a day ago appears to be developing a crush on me. Inconvenient. … Whatever. I am sure I can derive some use from this eventually. Finished brushing her hair, Avelyn hands the brush back to me. I quickly run it through my own hair exactly one hundred times, ensuring absolute perfection, and with both of us once again presentable to civilized society, we evacuate the tent and rejoin the group.

Several vines slip quietly from my shadow and immediately begin dismantling the campsite, folding the tent, collecting the sleeping bags, and delivering everything directly into my spatial storage with smooth efficiency. Helpful. Everyone chats idly for a while as preparations finish, while I mostly remain off to the side listening quietly. At some point, I petition our resident fire mage for assistance and begin grilling some of the fish from yesterday for breakfast. Simple. Just lightly salted.

We are going to be moving constantly today, so a heavy breakfast would only slow everyone down. A moderate meal now and a larger lunch later is the superior option. Naturally. Zeke initially attempts to incinerate the fish into carbonized biological samples before I aggressively correct his heat control. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. Progress is eventually achieved.

The fish cook quickly, skin crisping lightly over the flames while the scent drifts through the cavern. Avelyn's ears perk almost immediately. Predictable. We eat quickly while Marek explains the plan for the day. Reach the miniboss. Kill it. Preferably without dying horribly. A solid objective overall. Once breakfast is finished and camp fully packed away, we begin moving again.

Our pace is heavily limited by Marek, whose Dexterity apparently sits barely above two hundred despite possessing a genuinely unreasonable over one thousand Strength courtesy of Bearkin stat distributions. Watching him move is honestly fascinating. It feels less like watching a person travel and more like observing a heavily armed fortress attempting to participate in mobility.

Still, despite the slower pace, I find myself reconsidering the final boss more and more as Marek continues explaining it during the journey. Specifically: I may genuinely not be capable of killing it alone. At least not yet. Not without significantly more levels. Annoying. The creature is apparently a massive crawler-like monstrosity composed almost entirely of crystal, except with two additional appendages protruding from its shoulders, each ending in enormous curved claws it can manipulate independently.

Which is already rude design philosophy. Its Vitality is supposedly absurd even by boss standards, and Marek informs me that many adventurers believe it possesses multiple defensive passives in addition to some form of mana armor. In short: It is practically engineered specifically to inconvenience me personally. Shattering it outright is likely impossible at my current level. Trying to chip away at it conventionally would devolve into a deeply undignified several-hour-long stamina management exercise.

And while Rending Starfire Line is normally excellent against heavily armored enemies, its true strength lies in piercing durability and applying Astral Burn. Unfortunately, something specializing this aggressively into Vitality is uniquely resistant to exactly that kind of attritional damage. I could absolutely ignite it. Astral Burn can burn practically anything from what I currently understand. Crystal, metal, mana. Possibly even concepts themselves if sufficiently offended.

The issue is simply that bleeding out such an absurd health pool would take an annoyingly long amount of time. Especially since opening my Arcana for hours straight inside a cave sounds like an excellent way to create several new problems simultaneously. Therefore: traveling with the party instead of wandering off alone to destroy another ecosystem was, apparently, the correct choice. I do not particularly care whether the stampede actually occurs and wipes out everyone outside the city walls.

Unfortunate for them, certainly, but ultimately a skill issue. However, killing the boss itself has distinct advantages. Namely: loot and experience. So while the pace is dramatically slower than what I could accomplish alone, I suspect the end result will balance itself out eventually. Bonus points if I get the opportunity to witness another legendary skill holder in action. Assuming Avelyn manages to reach whatever deeply arbitrary threshold the system uses when deciding skill rarity, anyway.

I personally received two legendary options during my enhanced selection, so perhaps—if fortune decides to be reasonable for once—Avelyn may receive one as well. Maybe. … Probably not. I should not get my hopes up too much, but the possibility of witnessing a holy-aspected legendary skill firsthand is undeniably tempting. We continue moving through the cave system for hours afterward, slaughtering everything unfortunate enough to cross our path.

The monsters themselves only climbed to level sixty-four overnight, just as Marek predicted. The real difference is density and mutations. Groups are larger now. Much larger. We also encounter two more ambushes similar to the one the party nearly died to when I first found them, both contributing a healthy amount of experience to everyone involved. The crawlers have also begun mutating more aggressively. Some develop additional limbs. Others grow secondary heads.

One particularly unfortunate specimen somehow develops functioning eyes and immediately unlocks the sight DLC. A terrible life decision. That one was erased with extreme prejudice. A few mutate even further than that. One especially miserable crawler ends up stretched into some horrifying blend between an orangutan and a canopy stalker, complete with elongated forelimbs and disturbingly flexible joints. Tragic. By the time lunch arrives, I have gained two additional levels. Lunch itself is simple.

Sandwiches made from the Twin-Heart Grove Stag venison, accompanied by a healthy amount of fruit and a baked potato each. Efficient and balanced. We continue onward for another five hours after that, pushing deeper and deeper into the cave system until I finally reach level sixty-one. Only four levels remain until my next skill selection. Meanwhile, Marek and Rin both cross the threshold first, each obtaining an Epic skill.

Marek gains some kind of movement ability designed to rapidly intercept attacks aimed at allies. Useful. Rin, meanwhile, refuses to explain what he got at all. Apparently he wishes to unveil it at "the most dramatic timing possible." Valid. Especially considering that timing is likely approaching rapidly. Very rapidly. I tilt my head upward slightly and sniff the air. Cold water, wet moss, and underneath it, the tang of old blood and rotting fish.

As well as the faint scent of ozone lingering somewhere deeper within the cavern. Charming. The tunnel ahead gradually widens, the walls curving outward into an enormous open space. The miniboss arena, most likely. Before moving further, I quickly pull up my status screen.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Stats Vitality: 534 [+89] Strength: 734 [+122] Dexterity: 1622 [+270] Perception: 1198 [+200] Charisma: 132 [+22] Free Points: 92 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ A bit of mental math reveals the base values, and I immediately dump just enough points into Vitality to push it to five hundred before funneling the remainder into Dexterity. Naturally. It's about time I chase the second Dexterity milestone skill.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Vitality Threshold Surpassed: 500 Special Skill Unlocked: [Homeostasis] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [Homeostasis] A high-level physiological adaptation unlocked through extreme Vitality. (Passive) Greatly improves the body's ability to maintain stable internal function under extreme physical stress.

Reduces physiological disruption caused by trauma, exhaustion, and environmental strain, allowing bodily systems to continue functioning efficiently under conditions that would normally cause them to destabilize. Does not compensate for critical loss of blood, oxygen, or essential organ function. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Interesting. The wording is a bit dramatic, but the practical effect seems fairly straightforward.

My body will no longer immediately attempt to catastrophically implode simply because something has gone horribly wrong. Not regeneration or defense, just considerably better regulation when I'm injured, exhausted, overheated, freezing, or subjected to any of the other unpleasant circumstances my life insists on producing. Shock responses. Loss of coordination. Systems interfering with other systems. The usual annoyances. Convenient. I dismiss the status window and glance toward the rest of the party.

Marek adjusts the straps of his armor one final time. Rin already has both sabers drawn, pale frostflame already curling lazily along their edges. Avelyn's tail flicks nervously behind her despite the composed expression she is trying very hard to maintain. Then Marek speaks.

"We ready?" We all nod in affirmation, and together we step into the cavern. I blink slowly. Massive. That is genuinely the only word my brain manages to produce for the first few seconds. The scale of this place is absurd enough that I can hardly believe we are still underground at all. The distant back wall looks nearly ten kilometers away through the cavern haze, while the overwhelming majority of the space between us and it is consumed by dark water.

A colossal underground lake stretches before us, dotted with rocky islands covered in glowing moss and crystalline formations. Cold mineral air rolls slowly through the cavern, carrying the scent of wet stone and damp moss. The ceiling is significantly closer than the far wall, though "closer" is a relative term when it still towers several hundred meters overhead.

The entire cavern is illuminated by the faint bioluminescent glow of the moss carpeting the islands and walls, the light scattering softly through the countless crystal formations embedded throughout the stone. … Holy shit. My tail flicks slowly in appreciation. Beside me, Avelyn's does the exact same thing. Sylrae's wings twitch excitedly now that she finally has enough space to properly fly, while Rin, Zeke, and even Marek let out quiet sounds of disbelief as they stare across the underground sea before us.

Valid reaction, honestly. Dark shadows move beneath the surface of the lake, some still vaguely within the realm of "large aquatic animal" and others crossing firmly into "absolutely not." One particularly enormous shape glides beneath the water several kilometers away, large enough that the displacement alone sends waves rolling across the cavern. Then the lake explodes upward.

A deafening roar erupts through the cavern as something colossal surges from the depths, sending walls of water crashing against distant islands hard enough to shatter stone. An absolutely gargantuan serpent rises from the underground sea. Its body stretches upward in an endless column of blue-green scales until my sense of scale starts actively giving up on me. The thing is easily over two hundred meters long, thick enough that it could reasonably swallow a building whole if sufficiently motivated.

Jagged barbed spikes line nearly every scale across its body because apparently subtlety is a dead concept within this dungeon. Then its eyes lock onto us. And the thing that immediately concerns me is not the hunger. It is the intelligence. There is amusement in its gaze. Actual amusement. Its jaws slowly part, revealing two fangs that could reasonably qualify as public infrastructure.

Around the gigantic serpent, dozens of smaller serpents begin surfacing as well, rearing upward from the water with violent hisses that echo through the cavern. Some possess multiple heads, others wield different aspects, and one particularly unfortunate creature has somehow developed fully functional arms and legs. For reasons beyond mortal comprehension. I tilt my head slightly before turning toward Marek, who currently wears the expression of a man reconsidering every life decision that led him into this cave.

I speak politely.

"So… how far off the plan is this?" Marek slowly turns toward me.

"Do you even need to ask?" His tower shield slams into position with a heavy metallic boom while Sylrae's wings erupt outward, launching her skyward in a burst of wind. Golden light spreads across the cavern floor as Avelyn activates Hallowed Ground, while pale-blue frostflame blooms around Rin's body in freezing waves.

"That thing is beyond anything I have ever seen," Marek mutters. My smile sharpens slightly at the edges, becoming just a little less perfect. Just a little too excited. I do not bother correcting it. Instead, Astral Energy floods through my limbs as I smoothly settle into Blazing Star Dance. This is going to be fun. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Depthscale Tyrant (Level 65 | Tier 2) [Miniboss] Species: Aquatic Serpent Aspect: Tide A gigantic serpent mutated far beyond normal limits.

Utilizes immense physical strength alongside powerful tide manipulation to drown, crush, and consume anything entering its territory. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━