Syl: Chapter 147 (Patreon)

Chapter 147 : Ride the Lightning

Staring at the skill, I was filled with anticipation. Could I really buy this? A small part of me was nervous, but I pushed past it and proceeded to try.

<Skill [Thunder Step LV 1] obtained. Skill Points remaining 12.>

I felt so much relief, and it must have been clearly visible as Lisa gave a cheery smile.

"Great. Now, before you start zipping and zapping around, I need to give you some demonstrations and warnings," Lisa began her lecture. "First, a common-sense warning; do not use it inside any city. You'll spook everyone with the thunderclap at your arrival points and likely shatter some windows or send a noncombatant flying."

I nodded.

"Secondly, do not go airborne with it until at least level two. Trust me, you do not want to be on the receiving end if you cannot ground yourself."

I nodded. It was easily understandable from a human perspective, although I was tempted to see how it would interact with my [Voltaic Slime].

"Thirdly, if you haven't already, invest in the [Lightning Resistance] trait or get some gear. You can certainly afford the latter." Lisa said with a chuckle.

"I'll now give a quick demonstration and just a sample of one of my ideas. You'll undoubtedly find your own ideas and potential; I cannot even imagine what a full spellcaster can do with it."

Then Lisa's body began to crackle as she bolted up into the air. I now understood why this room was on the ground floor yet took up both the first and second floors in vertical size. When she arrived, there was a small shockwave and crackle of Lightning. Her body was now coursing with jolts of lightning.

"You have." She started speaking before bolting a short distance and regaining any lost height.

"Seconds," She said, reappearing with more surging energy.

She bolted again and reappeared. "Between jumps"

"Otherwise"

"You break." At this point, the amount of energy surging around her was quite frightening. She disappeared again in a flash of Lightning.

She landed on the ground, and all the built-up energy surged violently downwards. "The chain."

She gave a small bow, and I reflexively clapped at the demonstration. Lisa must have liked that as she gave a big toothy grin.

"So it builds up until discharged through the ground..." I started questioning my observations.

"Or yourself. Seriously, always keep one jump in reserve for the touchdown," Lisa interrupted. "I was also restraining the bursts between each jump; you'll want to work on that as soon as possible if you want to use it safely among party members."

I nodded and wondered if I could use the lightning attraction aspect of [Voltaic Slime] to further mitigate that.

"Okay. Last thing. I want to show off a bit." Lisa said, giving a cheeky wink as she walked over to a corner of a room where I noticed what looked like a storage bag and started pulling out an extremely impressive-looking sword. [Rune Reading] was immediately triggered, and I could see several inscriptions purely for gathering and holding mana.

"This was my first idea for working with and around the skill. It works as long as you have enough [Lightning Resistance] and can handle some pain." Lisa explained.

Her body began to crackle as she bolted upwards. This time, however, she didn't repeat the process, and she must have broken the chain. A bright flash of Lightning surged through her body for moments. I saw her eye twitch before the energy in her body rapidly directed itself toward her sword. The sword began to spark with dangerous power, and all the runes along its blade were alight.

She landed gracefully and flourished her sword, which gave off a deadly crackle through the air before she made a forceful swing. A bolt of lightning burst midswing and scattered against the wall, and an immense inscription of multiple reinforcements briefly flashed as it absorbed the attack.

"Impressive, right?" Lisa asked with smug satisfaction.

"Very," I answered honestly.

Lisa nodded as she sheathed the sword. "So yeah. My idea was you could [Thunder Step] your way across the countryside towards the dungeon. Gets you there fast, gives you time to practice the skill, and is much more exciting than filling some poor horse with potions."

"And get's me a skill I've desperately wanted," I added.

"Well... I'd probably hope you eventually get [Wind Step] unless you want to abandon your Rogue side. Obviously, [Thunder Step] utterly ruins any attempts at stealth."

I couldn't help but groan at the validity of that statement.

Finally, Lisa had me try out the skill and again emphasized that I should only use it to traverse the ground. She even suggested I buy level two immediately if I was worried enough. As I activated the skill, I felt it take some of my mana, and immediately, my body burst with lightning energy. I bolted to the edge of the room, arriving with quite a loud clap of thunder, and watched as the built-up energy immediately disappeared toward the ground. It felt exhilarating, and Lisa gave me a knowing smile.

"Fun, right?" Lisa asked.

"As long as you forget the potentially deadly aspect." I chuckled.

Lisa nodded. "I'd suggest avoiding wearing conductive metal while you practice it."

We chatted a bit more, and I tried out the skill several times before we called it. Before leaving, we headed to her office, and she showed me a map depicting the dungeon's location. To my surprise, it seemed to have updated my [Mapping] skill, and now I had a pretty solid idea of its location.

Armed with my transport method and location set, I just needed to make my final preparations and say my farewells. I spent another day getting some food supplies that I threw into storage and spending more time with Whitney. She expressed some desire to come with me, but she had her next job lined up in the capital and probably should have left a few weeks ago. She had claimed some "vacation time" while waiting for my return and also said both Dewi and Evan wouldn't forgive her if she didn't find out the results of my island adventure.

I spent a little time with Thern and smoothed things over by giving him a refill on his now favorite beverage. I'd discovered this as Sylvester, but the dwarf found it hilarious to see how a non-dwarf would react when they attempted the drink.

I'd asked if I should take any quests on the trip there, but that idea was shot down in flames. It sounded like Thern's solution now had an extremely strict time schedule, and I wasn't to waste any more time.

Finally, it was time for me to say my goodbyes. Whitney had almost ambushed me as I left my room, perhaps not trusting me to just leave like I did last time despite my numerous apologies and promises not to do that again. I promised to send her a message through the guild about how the dungeon went and another when I arrived in the dwarven empire. She also told me I must come to the capital after my dwarfy business was done. Finally, Whitney gave me a long hug and well wishes. Thern simply told me to hurry up and beat the dungeon already. Luke wished me good luck, and Lisa just gave me a thumbs up.

Leaving the city, I felt refreshed and free; I gave the guards a friendly wave as I winked, disappeared, and appeared in the distance to the sound of booming thunder. I chuckled to myself at their shock and surprise and triggered the skill again. It was time to ride the lightning.

Lisa was right; this was an extremely fast way to travel, albeit very mana-intensive. I had bragged about my mana, but even my reserves started to drop at the skill's current inefficient levels.

When it reached level two, I immediately tried to chain an airborne combination, moving diagonally upward and downward. I was pleased with the results; chained usage seemed noticeably cheaper than separate skill activations. This greatly reduced my travel time as I needed far fewer breaks to replenish my mana reserves.

My nighttime camp was my good old burrow-into-a-hole trick, and I even dug out a large enough area to pull out my bathtub! I spent the evening doing some much-needed [Rune Engraving] on my precious tub; it desperately needed some self-repair enchantment at a minimum, which I combined with a small storage inscription, which I filled up with mana. This way, it would have a reserve of mana to pull from if it needed to repair itself and wouldn't be subject to any degradation. Then, I sank into the tub for a very pleasant night's sleep.

On my second day of travel, I decided to experiment with [Voltaic Slime]. I was correct that its attraction function could greatly reduce the bursts at each arrival point, making it much safer for bystanders. Sadly, I couldn't do anything about the sound, but that was better than shocking someone accidentally who happened to be wearing too much metal. As for the redirected Lightning, [Voltaic Slime] was enough to contain it, and I could discharge it normally in directed bolts of my own. Feeling confident and knowing I had plenty of backup protections, I decided to see if [Voltaic Slime] was enough to handle the backlash from not grounding myself.

I had every core cast [Arcane Armor] and aligned everyone to Lightning for the presumed increased resistance. Then I bolted into the air and waited... The energy surrounding me began to surge and arc internally. I now understood what "internal lightning damage" meant, as the built-up energy discharged directly inside my own core. My [Arcane Armor] meant nothing, but thankfully, it didn't seem to be too much damage, likely due to my high resistance from both [Voltaic Slime] and [Elemental Adaptation]. It stung a lot but was siphoned off rather quickly into my slime and partially filled the capacity of [Voltaic Slime], and I fired another bolt upwards to free up my capacity. Then, I triggered the skill once into the furthest horizontal distance and another back diagonally downward to safely discharge.

'Okay... So I can already survive and use the negative side effect of [Thunder Step]. The pain sucks... I could always turn it off through the orc trait. But the damage, at least from one jump, doesn't seem that much. I'm unsure how much energy is stored per jump chain, but I'd rather not risk it right now.'

I hoped it would be a good way for me to train [Voltaic Slime] without casting [Lightning Magic] at myself. The skill hit level three late into the early evening, drastically increasing my travel speed. Referring to [Mapping], I could have reached my destination tonight, but I instead decided to call in the early evening and arrive first thing in the morning. This way, I also got to spend another underground evening in the comfort of my bathtub. There was no chance of blobbing out in the dungeon with the party I ended up with.

'If I had known I'd get [Thunder Step], I might have considered engraving lightning resistance into my core. I could destroy my core, but that seems... Shortsighted.' I shuddered, even thinking about it. I was extremely reluctant to test out my new lifesaving method.

On the last leg of my journey, I wondered what the poor travelers might have thought about hearing the booms of thunder across the distance. Would they believe some monster was doing something, or would they shrug it off as an adventurer thing? I had to assume the latter, as otherwise, why would Lisa have suggested that I use this as my travel method? Or perhaps she'd thought I'd get the thunderclaps under control quickly. I gave a small mental apology to any travelers I might have spooked before proceeding with my next three consecutive jumps.

It didn't take long before my [Eagle Vision], combined with my significant elevation, spotted the huge amount of tents in all varying sizes and colors surrounding what looked like a giant hole in the ground. It all lined up with the destination [Mapping] pointed me towards, so I landed nearby before casually strolling the final distance. I figured arriving in a bolt of thunder in the middle of the tents would not earn me any friends. And if [Mapping] and common sense weren't enough, my [Dungeoneer] emblem also tickled the back of my mind, informing me there was a dungeon nearby.

<[Dungeoneer]
With extraordinary effort and luck, you have completed a dungeon solo. Or perhaps you over-leveled and stomped a low-level dungeon? Either way, congrats!
Dungeon loot earned has a higher chance of being enchanted.
Equipping this emblem will slightly increase the chance of dungeon loot dropping and allow the user to detect nearby undefeated dungeons.>

I had slightly forgotten that the emblem would point me toward dungeons I hadn't beaten yet. I wondered if the loot bonuses would make me a sought-after party member.

Despite my precautions, when I arrived, I could hear some groggy adventurers complaining about "bloody lightning mages." I had clearly awoken some of them earlier than they liked.

It was a little surprising seeing the variety of setups; there were food tents, vendors, and even a sort of pawn shop where you could sell your dungeon loot. Unfortunately, despite the general grogginess of the early morning, quite a few people noticed the clearly visible elf approaching.

I headed toward the absolutely massive tent, which looked like something a circus might set up. Thankfully, as I approached it, I saw the clearly labeled sign declaring it the Adventurer's Guild.