Evolution conditions t: Sword proficiency ranks up to sword mastery
Swords may co in many different styles, but the general idea of getting a long bit of tal and sharpening one or both sides is about as ubiquitous as weapons can get. There's a reason why they're so popular; they work. In fact, they work well enough that you were able to take down a natatio sideralis, daemonium spina and daemonium brutum with one. This skill greatly increases your competence and damage when attacking with a sword.
Evolution conditions t: Cutting damage resistance ranks up to cutting damage nullification
Swords, axes, chakrams or scythes, plenty of weapons work by concentrating a large force into a sharp edge. You have survived the removal of a limb, as well as, sohow, a full beheading, earning you this upgrade from resistance to nullification. This skill will make your body much harder to cut.
I stood over the corpse of my fallen foe, panting as the jeers from the spectators rolled over . It wasn't that they had anything against , or disproved of
beating a demon. They jeered everyone. The demon spectators were equal opportunity jeerers.
The bulky, five tre humanoid demons I'd seen on floor four but had never been close enough to appraise turned out to be nad daemonium brutum. Physical fighters with no magical ability, and muscles where their brain should be. Not great for a conversation, but perfect for training my neglected combat skills.
I noted with disappointnt that the sword skill evolution ssage lacked the 'without a scratch' part that it had the last ti. I felt that was unfair; I hadn't taken any scratches. There was no way having an arm lopped off counted as a scratch, and nor did having a sword run through my lung. They were both far too large wounds to be considered scratches. I did have to laugh at the bit about surviving a beheading, though. When was that? Ah, right, when I was licking up black blight stuff to train my disease immunity, and dupliKatie wanted to make very sure we didn't get a third sister.
Actually, from the way my panting didn't appear to be achieving anything, I think he got both lungs.
Suffocation tolerance advanced to level 5
Yup, both lungs. Thankfully, the abyss had a shrine, so I didn't have to walk down here from floor four after every defeat. There had been a lot of those over the past day, but at least I had a lot to show for it. When I first joined the arena fights, I struggled against one of the imps, and now here I was, forcing a draw against one of the giants.
Best of all, we could fight without restraint. I respawned, while they... were fake. Not in the sense of being soulless monsters, but in the sense of being blatant NPCs. Just like I'd complained about the gate guards' excessive shifts, the arena audience never left. Their entire existence involved nothing more than sitting in the stands and jeering. The exact sa demons had been in the exact sa seats on my every visit.
And the competitors... They all ca out of a gate in the opposite side of the arena, but I'd stuck my head in there once, and all that was behind it was a short corridor that didn't go anywhere. I walked up to the arena reception, picked my difficulty level, entered the arena, and a suitable opponent spawned. I could watch it happen with perceive presence. A demon just coalesced into existence, walked out of the door, and attacked .
They still talked, and gave every impression of being intelligent, but no-one complained when they died. It was kinda freaky, especially when I got the sa demon twice. Literally. He had the sa face, the sa voice, the sa na, and the sa personality. Didn't rember
from the first ti I killed him, though.
I'd even sat in the audience a few tis, and it made no difference. Demons ca out of both sides, one killed the other, and the survivor left, fading back out of existence once it was through the gate. And then nothing else happened. The corpse just remained there, abandoned on the floor. Until I left the audience and walked back in, at which point the floor would be pristine again, and a new pair of competitors would enter to fight.
Was it just my imagination, or did things get stupider the lower in the dungeon I travelled? This floor wasn't even trying to be realistic. At least the fox-kin had a fairly decent civilization going on.
Or had they? Once again, I was reminded that I'd never seen the temple closed for the night, nor had anyone be unavailable due to being asleep. It wasn't as if I'd spent much ti there. Maybe I'd just failed to see past a thin veneer of realism.
I shook the thoughts from my head as I stood up and made my way back to the arena for my next attempt. My twin thought she was real, and that was good enough for
to want to save her. The situation with the pair of dragons and
accidentally screwing myself over was just icing on an already tempting cake. I needed to get stronger. However much progress I'd made over the previous day, I couldn't imagine I was anywhere near the level required to beat a demon lord.
Demon lord was, alas, not an available selection in the arena. Maybe it was a secret unlock? Or it had a non-obvious na; there were a lot of options, after all.
Na: Katie
Primary class: Princess of undying laughter (level 9)
- Class skills -
Trigger respawn
Item box {Enhanced}
Mapping
Appraisal {Enhanced}
Resistance focus {Enhanced}
Fast travel {Enhanced}
Secondary class: Aberrant monster tar (Level 4)
Improved silk
Draconic breath (rainbow)
{empty} [ ]
{empty} [ ]
{locked}
Tertiary class: None {locked}
- Combat skills -
Unard proficiency: Level 13
Master dodger: Level 22
Spear proficiency: Level 20
Master blocker: Level 20
Dagger proficiency: Level 20
Sword mastery: Level 20
Proficient parrier: Level 20
- Resistance skills -
Friend of fear
Pain immunity: Level 33
Poison immunity: Level 34
Corrosion immunity: Level 32
Disease immunity: Level 40
Mind magic nullification: Level 27
Heat immunity: Level 30
Light tolerance: Level 4
Cold nullification: Level 24
Curse nullification: Level 25
Soul magic resistance: Level 14
Spatial magic tolerance: Level 2
Suffocation tolerance: Level 5
Earth magic tolerance: Level 2
Blunt damage resistance: Level 20
Piercing damage resistance: Level 20
Cutting damage nullification: Level 20
Void resistance: Level 10
- Crafting skills -
Improvisational artisan: Level 15
Artistry: Level 4
Mining: Level 5
- Scouting skills -
Proficient stealth: Level 13
Perceive presence: Level 10
Proficient empath: Level 10
Sense danger: Level 9
- Magic skills -
Perceive mana: Level 12
Bend mana: Level 6
Since that big guy counted as an achievent for my sword proficiency, I needed to kill one with a spear and a dagger to get those evolutions too, and do so parrying for that evolution. I'd already evolved dodging and blocking in an earlier battle. Despite the ones on floor four being unard, the arena combatants carried weapons. They were still completely naked, though, and all were very definitely male. I could probably get another blunt resistance achievent just by goading one into turning around very quickly.
The weapon seed to be randomised each ti, and I'd had my head spattered by a hamr and had my heart stabbed out by a spear, so they should count as achievents for blunt and piercing resistance, but I still needed one more. Since a daemonium spina, one of the pointy hedgehog things, counted as an achievent for my sword proficiency and defensive skills, perhaps I could get my second achievent for piercing resistance off one. That just left
in need of sothing for blunt. Maybe if I deliberately crashed into the ground at maximum speed?
I was going to need a notebook to start writing all this stuff down. What happened to levelling by breathing fire and having diseased zombie sex? When did it suddenly get complicated? Still, it could be worse. At least there wasn't any maths involved, beyond achievent counting.
Well, no ti like the present. Abandoning my walk to the arena, I spread my wings and flew directly upwards, gaining height until I hit the roof of the cavern. Then I aid myself straight down and dived.
Evolution conditions t: Blunt damage resistance ranks up to blunt damage nullification
Clubs, war-hamrs, staves or even a fist, plenty of weapons work by subjecting their target to sudden, overwhelming montum. Or, on occasion, it's the target that has the overwhelming montum, such as the ti you impacted solid bedrock at supersonic speeds. For surviving the impact, as well as a daemonium brutum cracking your skull open with a war-hamr, you have earned this upgrade from resistance to nullification. This skill will allow you to absorb a large portion of any impacts.
Success. Frankly, training those resistance skills was the only reason I hadn't taken the rainbow scales skill yet. The extra layer of protection would doubtless make levelling harder. Or most of the reason. Given the apparent fact that I had a level cap, I didn't want to assu I'd be able to enhance every one of my skills, so delaying picking out skills until I was level five would be advantageous.
I stood up and made my way to the arena once more, this ti to battle another daemonium spina and deliberately let it beat , apologising silently to the demons walking around the streets when I passed my impact site. Unlike the arena, it had not been magically cleaned up while I wasn't looking, and I was impressed by the way the blood had managed to splatter as high as the fourth story of the surrounding structures. Though the skill ssage had said sothing about
going supersonic, so perhaps I shouldn't be surprised.
I tried not to look at the impact site itself. That was... a ss. In the battle between my skull and the rock floor, my skull had most certainly not erged victorious. It had certainly erged in other ways though, as had my brain, and my... well, everything else. I hadn't just crashed, I'd splashed.
The demons walked around it completely unperturbed, not even comnting on the gore. They noticed and responded to , but my splattered remains apparently weren't worth their ti. Another sign of the fading attempts at realism? I stopped and watched for a while, and to my complete lack of surprise, I saw a humanoid demon leave a house, walk up the street, and into a different house. Then, ten seconds later, the door of the first house reopened and the sa demon walked out again. I let the loop repeat five tis before I looked away.
Once again, I was left wondering if the fox-kin settlent had been like that. I'd never stopped in the streets and just watched. I'd always been walking, and if the sa person walked out of the sa house twice, I'd never have noticed. They'd reacted to , but so did the demons. But surely I'd have noticed sothing. I couldn't imagine these demons holding a civil war, for example.
Maybe it was a combination? There were a limited subset of 'real' ones, and the rest were just background decoration, like the black dragon seed to be far more real than the demons living here. If living was the right word. Existing here.
Next ti I saw that dragon, I was going to need to ask. If he hadn't noticed how stupid this city was, then I would feel a lot less bad about the world ceasing to exist, if I ever found a way to get the sword. He'd said that... He'd...
Damn. There was sothing he'd said. So way I could break the oath safely. But thanks to the oath, I couldn't even bring it back to mind.
No use dwelling on it, though; I had skills to grind. I finished my trip to the arena and picked up my winnings from my last fight, which the receptionist was happy to give
despite
dying out there imdiately following my victory. I picked my next opponent and made my way into the ring, wearing only my nightie, waving to the spectators, who responded only by jeering more loudly.
My opponent left its gate, the size of a large dog, standing on six legs and covered in red spines. It raised its two tails, aiming them straight at , and fired. I spread myself wide for optimal reception of impacts.
Evolution conditions t: Piercing damage resistance ranks up to piercing damage nullification
Spears, poniards, arrows, or even a club with a nail in it, plenty of weapons work by concentrating a force onto a small spot, piercing into their target. For surviving your heart being run through by the spear of a daemonium brutum and over a hundred simultaneous wounds from the spines of a daemonium spina, you have earned this upgrade from resistance to nullification. This skill will make your body much harder to pierce.
Over a hundred? How many spines did it pack into those tails?
Reviews
All reviews (0)