Chương 207: Chapter Two-Hundred-and-Seven

Adam led them to Alexander Tobias' house after checking that his compass pointed in the same direction, when he asked it about the dungeon key. As soon as he broke the lock and led them into the large house, it was clear that the collector had left in a hurry. The rooms were almost entirely untouched, save for a few drawers and cupboards that'd been opened in a hurry to grab a few essentials and money while Alexander and his goons waited out the coming siege. Little good that did them.

The thought of abandoning his collection likely hadn't occurred to Alexander, so Adam guessed that the collector's plan involved his home remaining intact following the siege. It seemed blindingly naïve. But at least his stupidity is serving us well. In the first room they found three trophies that had an actual rarity and could therefore be sold.

< < Collectible Relics > > < Mimic Tongue (Epic) — The greedy tongue of a Mimic Chest > < Ambergris (Rare) — A fragrant waxy substance found within a Slugwhale > < Statue Elemental Core (Uncommon) — The crystallised soul of a Statue Elemental > The others spread out to ransack the place for more loot, while Adam hunted down the key. It was fairly easy to locate, since it lay on the Centennial Oak desk in Alexander's study.

When he saw it, Adam wondered if the collector had been intending to uphold his end of the wager. Natalia had asked why they needed a key if Adam could open locks for them, and the answer was quite simple. The Trials of Defiance didn't follow the normal rules of logic, so important doors had important keys, and unless they possessed some relic or skill that specifically allowed them to bypass locks, they had to play along to get them to open.

It was the same premise behind the final door to the Godstone in the Floating Sea. Since everyone was still busy making a mess of the mansion's many rooms, Adam retraced his steps to the library he'd seen. The collector had bragged about having blood spells in his possession, and Adam was eager to confirm whether it had been bluster or not. Using the compass, he located two items of interest, but there was no reaction when he asked the compass to show him the nearest secret within one-hundred metres.

The first object was a spell-tome, which surprised him. < < Weapon Obtained > > < Insightful Spell-Tome (Uncommon) — The spell-tome of an insightful Librarian > It's not a secret, which is surprising, given how it was hidden away in here. I wonder if that means it can be bought from the vendors in this stage. Since it's a spell-tome, it should be able to fuse with Warder.

Adam was itching to try and figure out its secrets, but he couldn't swap his weapons out for it here, so he reluctantly asked his cube to return it to his player house. [Understood.] The second object was a small notebook bound in pale-grey leather with black stitching. The text inside had been written in blood, using the Demonic language, but Adam quickly started skimming through it when he realised it was just a strange manifesto made by a magician ages past.

From what he could gather based on the context, the original owner had been 'at war' with the local government in Moonport, during a time before the vampires had settled in. The notebook featured a few spells, but Adam already knew them all, although at the very back, where the writing became increasingly paranoid, the magician had left a strange pattern and stated, " The Blood Spider crawled into my ear as I slept and lay its egg upon my brain. It was always the spiders, always the spiders, always the spiders…"

Adam removed his raiment gauntlet and fire glove to place his glass hand on the spell pattern. An image flashed through his mind, fragmented and ancient, of a man in a cell with carvings on the walls and his arms full of cuts and sores from self-harm. He used his own blood to write this. The rest of the pages were blank, making it likely that the spider ramblings had been the last thing the magician wrote before succumbing to his self-made injuries.

The Blood Spider spell was not described, but from what Adam was slowly starting to piece together about the structure of spell patterns, it was not an offensive spell. Rather, it was something transformative that could be added to patterns or used to change the properties of materials. Guess I'll give it a try.

He wove the pattern in the air with blood and the moment he finished, the mandate of blood glowed and made him understand the spell in its entirety, including the fact that it was possible to activate by simply tapping into the proper frequency, just like with Blood Crystal. Adam pulled more blood out of his raiment and flung it at a bookcase while triggering the frequency for Blood Spider. The blood thinned out and took on a stringy property, becoming a web that anchored itself between the walls and shelves.

That's pretty useful for setting traps. Then Adam had an epiphany. I should be able to weave spells with this! Just like with the spidersilk needle! He wouldn't have any of the weaving-based buffs that the Golden Tailor offered, but it was a lot more convenient than requiring a flat surface to draw his spells on when he wanted to make traps. Not to mention, I can make use of Shade Barrier again! Probably…

While he messed around with the new blood transformation spell, the others finished their looting, but aside from a single sack containing 1, 100 Silvers, they'd come up empty-handed. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

"What are you doing?" Seo-Yoon asked him as he finished the Shade Barrier blood-silk construct, placing it on his corset beneath the raiment's torso plate. It was filled with his mana and primed to trigger on the next attack that would harm him. The others filtered into the library behind her, staring at the red spiderweb covering one of the bookcases and walls.

"Experimenting," he replied. He hid the notebook away under his raiment and got up from where he'd been sitting.

"Natalia, I want you to try and hit me," he requested, taking off his blood mage choker and putting it in his pocket. She didn't question it in the slightest and pulled out her katana. The others backed away.

"Is this a good idea?" Chien asked. Diwa said nothing and Seo-Yoon seemed excited to find out what he'd discovered. Natalia lifted her sword.

"Where should I aim?"

"My torso, preferably, but—" Before he could finish the sentence, she swung her sword through him. Or rather, the blood-formed copy of him that replaced his body as he was shifted back four metres, his back bumping against the wall. The copy fell away into a puddle on the floor. Natalia looked at her sword and then to Adam, who put his blood choker back on.

"What the hell was that?" she asked.

"It's called Shade Barrier," he replied. Natalia covered the space between them in an instant, but her blade struck the blood barrier from his choker and rebounded.

"Stop," he told her, pushing the bones out of his raiment's torso plates to create a barrier in front of himself.

"A third hit will actually harm me." Or my raiment at least.

"It only works once? This shade thing?" she asked, stepping away to give him some space.

"That's right," he replied, pulling the bone barrier back into his raiment.

"Can you make one for me too?" Seo-Yoon asked.

"Anyone can wear it, right?"

"Wear it?" Chien asked.

"Is it not a spell?"

"It's a wearable spell," Adam explained.

"At least my version of it is."

"I'd like one too," Natalia said.

"Me too," Diwa added.

"I am no fan of blood magic, as it offends the angel, but it would be foolish to disregard something made to be protective," Chien remarked.

"Make sure you make his out of ethically-sourced blood," Seo-Yoon joked.

"I don't care what you make it out of, so long as it has the same effect," Natalia said. Diwa nodded.

"Me neither." Adam got to work making five more of the blood silk constructs as they left the mansion. He had no idea if they would trigger when worn by other people, and normally he lacked enough blood inside stages to test the theory properly. I could've tested it in the player house with Beck, he considered. After all, Beck had been instrumental in figuring out how to make it work, but the thought of using it on others hadn't occurred to him, given its high cost of blood and mana.

The first person to receive one was Chien, since he was particular about where the blood came from. Adam made a big show of separating and filtering the blood so that it only belonged to the fighters who had died in the arena. It was, of course, all bullshit. He did not have the skill required to do something so complex, at least not when almost all of the blood belonged to humans. Although, he did manage to separate the horse blood from the paralysed mounts he'd absorbed and included that in the spell construct.

Not exactly what you'd call 'ethically sourced', but beggars can't be choosers. By the time they made it to the barracks, where Tabian and the Gothershall guard captain met them outside, Adam had outfitted each of them with their own Shade Barrier construct. Only Seo-Yoon wore hers over her crimson shirt, but the others hid them away under their various armour relics. The blood reserves of his raiment were reduced to the point that he might only have enough to make two more.

He still had plenty of flesh and bone stored in the armour, so the overall boost had only dropped about eighty percent. For their aid with the traitor quest, Tabian gave them an upgrade chest, and for the tournament win, they received fifteen-thousand Silvers and two more upgrades. The upgrades went to Natalia, Chien, and Seo-Yoon, and Adam held onto the money.

They bid farewell to the two captains and headed for the Gothershall merchant's plaza, with the intent to buy potions before they went outside the city wall to take on the black riders. Adam pre-emptively downed his stamina potion to ward off the fatigue affliction that would surely hit him by the end of the third day, given that he hadn't slept yet. Then he filled the three empty slots of his potion belt with medium healing potions.

Natalia also got a healing potion to fill her belt back to full, meaning she had two of them alongside her stamina potion. If not for her ability to avoid damage through movement alone, Adam would've been worried about letting Natalia continue to wear the potion belt, since it could lead to an automatic potion consumption back-to-back and inflict the potion toxicity affliction on all of them if they were close to her. It should be fine with the Shade Barrier spell on top of her movement abilities.

So long as the spell constructs actually work on other people than me… After the purchases, they were down to 15, 515 Silvers, and they decided to peruse the weapons and relics vendors, even though the rarest they were likely to see on the third day would be uncommons. Just like Adam had predicted, the spell-tome reappeared amongst the selection of weapons for sale, under the name ' Librarian'.

< < Classes For Sale > > < Highwayman (Common) > < Prodigal Duellist (Uncommon) > < Librarian (Uncommon) > The other two weapons were a shortsword akin to those used by the Red Scarves, and a silver rapier like the one belonging to Alicia the duellist. Maybe there'll be more weapons tied to the tournament, Adam guessed. He wasn't sure what else might show up, since all of the prominent enemies in the stage dropped their weapons, meaning there was little to use for the vendors' options.

But the lack of weapons for sale hardly mattered, given just how many secret weapons the ninth stage seemed to possess, evident by how many they had already obtained. The relics were quite interesting, though the epic selection would be more exciting, since they would be able to get the wishing coin again. < < Relics For Sale > > < Wind Chime (Common) — Leads to the nearest point of interest > < Sacred Stone (Uncommon) — Activate to heal 50 Health.

Breaks after use | Absorbs up to two afflictions, but breaks after the second absorption > < Judge's Pendant (Uncommon) — Force a humanoid target to obey one command, so long as it doesn't harm them. Breaks after use > That pendant has a lot of worrisome applications, depending on what is considered 'harm'. It may also be a clue to the powers of the forlorn judge. I don't think I can use the sacred stone, since it looks like it uses holy magic, but we should buy it for Natalia. As for the last one…

"Should we get the wind chime?" Diwa asked. Adam shook his head.

"It's a trap. It will point towards notable places, but it'll also draw enemies to us with its sound, even from very far away."

"We could use it to set up ambushes," Natalia suggested.

"It would be a waste of time, but you're right, it could be used that way. I think we just buy the sacred stone and come back tomorrow for the rares that'll show up," Adam replied.

"What about the pendant?" Chien asked.

"Can it be used on a boss?"

"I'm not sure," Adam said. I had only thought about how it might be abused against players…

"We should try it," Diwa said.

"2, 000 Silvers is a lot of money for a one-time-use single-target item," Adam replied.

"I'm not sure how much more money we'll be able to get, given how we've done the two quests worth the most already. The stone will be able to alleviate Natalia's weakness and protect us in case we run into another paralysis attack or something equally sinister. I think our focus should be to spend our money in the way that best covers our weaknesses and makes us able to recover in case a fight doesn't go according to plan." The others paused to consider his logic.

"Do you think a harmless command counts as an affliction?" Seo-Yoon wondered.

"It might," Adam conceded.

"If so, we could use it on the black riders," she suggested.

"What command would we use?" Adam challenged.

"Drop your weapons?" Diwa replied.

"That may be considered harm to themselves," Chien countered. Adam nodded.

"We could tell them to dismount," Natalia said.

"It would be the same potential issue," Adam argued.

"We don't know the limitations of its 'harmless' wording, so it's better if we don't build our strategy around it. We already have a good idea of how we'll take on the black riders, so we should stick with that. We can try the pendant later, when we're only fighting one knight and not a trio."

Diwa and Natalia clearly had a more optimistic perception of the pendant's wording, but Adam had learnt to be a pessimist when it came to things like that, and while he could tell they disagreed, they did fundamentally believe that the safest path was the surest one. None of them were actually prepared to risk their lives on a 'maybe', when they had something a lot more certain to succeed.

In the end, they bought the sacred stone and then they found a small park to take a short break as they mentally prepared to leave Gothershall.