Level 1 Fallen

Chapter 191: Spirited Away

With the quest complete, I naturally chose the Seeker of Truth skill. Meanwhile, Karlson was led away by one of the scholars for a personal discussion. I sent him a private message to ask him if he wanted us to wait for him, but he assured me that there was no need. Most likely, he had already planned on joining the organization as soon as he was told about them.

Then again, this is Karlson we’re talking about. He might have even realized that this was a special organization back when he read about the dungeon, and had been waiting for his chance to get in. While I had no way to be certain about this theory, it would have certainly made sense.

“What now?” Diane asked, watching Karlson leaving with the scholars. “Are we going to head back right away, or…?”

“Not just yet,” I shook my head, looking at the collection of books. “Since we’re here, why don’t we get some practical benefit? I was halfway through reading some manuals on weapon techniques. There should also be books detailing different skill combinations or interesting legends that we could look out for when we go back.”

Bella’s eyes widened slightly at this, looking towards the books. “So, instead of trying to just study everything for the sake of the tests…?”

“Right, we can actually find information important to us now,” I confirmed, before looking at Eilwen. “As for you, I’m sure that there are quite a few different magical skills that you’d be able to look up here.”

With that, the group settled on spending a little more time in the dungeon. Our powers were still mostly sealed, but we didn’t need them if we were just going to be reading.

My first target was to read a comprehensive manual for spears, daggers, bows, swords, and staves. I would look up guns, but they are a more recent creation within the world, so I doubted that anyone had written a proper manual for them yet. With this, I would have a foundation to train all of the weapons that I am most likely to use.

My second target was to read advanced guides to butchering. My Scavenging Mastery had been stalled at level fifteen for ages, because I hadn’t found a proper chance to level it up. I wanted to see what would happen if I managed to reach the highest level of this skill.

My third and final target, though this was optional and would depend on how quickly everyone else finished their own research, would be to find manuals for architecture and blacksmithing. Like with my butchery, I wanted to increase my chances of getting the Labyrinth Master skill, and boost the power of my Shadow Forge.

My first goal was easy to reach, as I had already read through most of the books that I needed. After a few hours of studying, that was done. In the meantime, Diane had fully absorbed herself in studying runes, and Bella in researching different recorded dungeons. Eilwen had stacks of books piled so high around her that I couldn’t immediately make out what she was reading.

When I went to look for butchery guides, I stumbled across a book that seemed out of place within the gathering section, at least until I saw its subtitle. Corpse Tamer, the Grandmaster Butcher.

Interested, I pulled the book from the shelf and began to read it right there. This book dispelled my doubts about the grandmaster form of my skill. The highest form of Butchery was Corpse Collector, a skill which had a chance to a consumable card from harvested monster corpses. These cards could be used to summon a minion version of the defeated monster.

This is basically discount necromancy, I thought to myself, understanding why the man who made this skill known was called the Corpse Tamer. According to the book, both the chance to receive the card and the duration that the card could be used were dependent on the level of the Corpse Collector skill.

In other words, this skill was definitely worth going out of my way to level as much as possible. In order to properly grind it, though, I would need to spend a week or two in one of the animal-focused resource dungeons, doing nothing but fighting and harvesting all day.

That didn’t exactly sound like fun, if I were to be completely honest, so I put off leveling it up for now. I would spend some time on that when the others needed a break for their own training again.

After putting the book back, I found a more useful guide to butchery that described the process of harvesting several rare monsters, similar to the guides that I had obtained in the training dungeon.

Like this, the night passed without incident, and I learned from one of the scholars that Karlson really had accepted the invitation. However, since there was not a new, halfling-sized scholar roaming the aisles of the dungeon, I assumed that they had a proper base where members typically stayed.

On our third day in the dungeon, I saw Diane reading through an alchemical guide to poisons, while Bella had a book that I couldn’t completely identify, called The Everburning Ice.

I decided to ask her about her findings once we were done with our collective research, and began studying books related to architecture. I had no expectations to complete years of research in a matter of hours, I just wanted to read through common tricks that would help me improve the quality of my creations down the line.

At around noon, I heard a long sigh from Diane. “I don’t think I can do this anymore,” she complained, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I’m sick of being stuck in this library all day.”

Bella had a wry smile on her face, closing the book that she was reading. “If that’s the case, I think we should be able to leave now? Is there anything that anyone still wants to take care of, first?”

Eilwen looked reluctant to go, having finished less than a third of her own pile of books. Still, she shook her head. “I’m… fine. I definitely don’t want you three taking off without me.”

I hadn’t gotten around to finding a blacksmithing guide yet, but there wasn’t much that I could do about that. We had already achieved our main goal of coming here, and I had even evolved the downgraded Disciple of Truth back up to Seeker of Truth. Naturally, the quest for Disciple of Truth had been shared with the others, though I had been able to get away with making the quest simply reading books, so everyone had already passed.

“Let’s go, then,” I said, turning to walk towards the entrance. “Since we already have the skill, there’s no need to fight the boss anymore.”

The others agreed, and we left through the same entrance that Karlson had previously emerged from. When we opened the door and stepped through the portal, we found ourselves in a pitch black library, the floors made of blackened wood. Twisted stone pillars rose up to support a large ceiling.

“...I don’t like the looks of this,” Bella muttered, looking at a statue in the center of the library. The statue was of a tall figure clutching an unfurled scroll in one hand. This figure had large, curved horns and a thick tail, as well as two wings sprouting from its back.

Immediately, I activated Wraith Zone around the group, my eyes wide. Just from the look of this library, the list of our possible exits could be narrowed down quite a lot. And none of the options were good.

I gestured for everyone to follow me, flying up and through the ceiling of the library. Outside, I could see dark skies mixed with red lightning, and demons walking the streets openly carrying their weapons.

Abyssis, I messaged the group. We have to be careful. My stealth skill moves us into the realm of spirits, but I would not be surprised if there are demons who can naturally see spirits. If there are, they might be able to see through my stealth.

There was no guarantee that such a person would recognize us as anything but spirits, but I did not want to take that chance. Without missing a beat, I shifted into my draconic form, channeling Glancing Steps to do so. Everyone on, now. I’m going to go as fast as I can, and whoever spots an open rift, let me know immediately.

As soon as they got on my back, I flapped my wings, disappearing onto the horizon. In the distance, I noticed a few demons locking onto me through my Counter Detection-X, but they quickly lost sight of me with a few beats of my wings.

If there was one thing that I could be proud of, it was that this form was very good at getting away from people. For most people, I would disappear in the time it took them to notice I was even there, and they would need a comparable skill in order to actually catch up with me.

I kept my eyes on the distance, passing over rivers of blood and walking forests. My only goal was to move as quickly as I could, changing directions every so often to both evade pursuit and increase the search area.

After about three hours of dizzying speeds, I felt Bella slap my back, causing me to stop. Looking around, I spotted the rift as a speck on the horizon off to my right. Unfortunately, we had no way of knowing which rift this was, or which world it connected to. However, I doubted that it would be worse than Abyssis.

I teleported over, seeing that the rift was currently a mass of swirling grey. A group of demons were gathering before the gate, looking like they were either defending it or preparing an assault. Either way, I teleported again and dove straight through, keeping myself near the top of the rift to avoid any immediate attacks.

Once I was through the rift, I came upon a serene, grassy meadow. Calm beasts walked along, grazing as we gazed down upon them. Well, this doesn’t seem bad, I thought to myself, trying to figure out which realm we had traveled to. Unlike the other rifts we had visited in the past, there was no defense camp created here to prevent demonic incursion, which was odd given that I didn’t see any demons attacking.

Drake… no matter what you do, do not cancel Wraith Zone for any reason. As I was looking around to identify our whereabouts, Diane sent that message to me, causing me to look back at her curiously. Did you not notice? Everything’s clear here.

My eyes briefly widened, turning to look back at the vivid meadow below. Since the surroundings had already been blurring so much from our constant teleporting before, I had nearly forgotten that I should be seeing everything as a hazy fog while I was using this skill.

For that not to be the case here, that meant one thing, which I verified by typing a message out with my claws. Did we end up in Mistralis? Of course we went from the homeland of demons to the second most dangerous realm connected to the rifts.

It looks that way. Everything seems peaceful now because we’re in spirit form. I’d be willing to bet that if you turned that skill off, those beasts would turn into ravenous monsters and charge through the mist. And I’d rather not test that theory.

I couldn’t help but nod my head in agreement. Waiting here for the rift to change sounds like a fantastic idea.

They’ll have experts that can see spirits on the other side of any rift connected to Mistralis, Diane pointed out. Wherever we end up after this, you’re going to need to disappear very, very fast.