Elemental Accords 1-9 (Patreon)

Good Morning!

Chapter 9

The night passed slowly. As we figured the monsters grew much more active after sunset. I wasn’t sure of the cause, but thankfully, our street remained quiet. I summoned my Knights since the cooldown was over and had them head into the darkness to hunt monsters. They were also ordered to save anyone they happened upon. Since there were no new faces when I woke, I figured they either didn’t find anyone or they fled from the living armors.

Around daybreak, I decided to check my status as it had been a while. I was sure I had leveled a good deal with how many monsters that we’d killed yesterday. Plus, I needed to keep an eye on my skills. Wouldn’t want to have a skill that could have saved my life and not even realize it was there.

--

Name: Aurum Lockfeather

Age: 25

Level: 7

Ability:

Midas Touch – Able to turn objects touched into solid gold. Currently can be used three times a day. Object size is limited.

Gold is Power (Lv.3) – The more gold you possess, the stronger you become.

Gold is Steel (Lv.2)– Gold in your hands has the strength of Steel.

Gold is Health (Lv.3) – When you possess gold, your body will heal. With enough gold, even limbs can be regrown.

Gold is Death – When your gold touches an enemy, expend mana to deal increased damage. Amount of mana spent = how much damage you deal.

Encroaching Greed – The longer you stay in a place the more likely other people are going to be affected by an overwhelming greed.

ItemBox (Lv.1) (Legendary) – Able to storage items in a sub-dimension. Counts as touching and does not reduce weight. Skills that affect items can still reach your item box. Grows the more it is used.

Knight Order Summoning (Lv.1) – Summon three living armors to fight alongside of you. Duration: 2-hour. Cooldown: 1-hour.

Ark (Lv.1) (Legendary) – Summon a flying ship. The ship can grow.

Beginner Staff Technique – The teachings of the staff will be with you.

Beginner Sword Technique – The teachings of the sword will be with you.

Beginner Bow Technique – The teachings of the bow will be with you.

Beginner Spear Technique – The teachings of the Spear will be with you.

--

I nodded once I finished looking everything over. I had a good grasp of all the skills with the Ark being the only one I hadn’t tested yet. Looking at the sky, we would want to move in about an hour. I pointed my hand toward the sky and thought of using the skill.

Another menu appeared in front of me.

Ark Creation: Choose the form your ark will take. Once set the form will be permanent. The ship can be upgraded but upgrades will be in line with the form taken. If the Ark is damaged or destroyed, a timer will be placed on the skill indicating how long until it is usable again. Certain levels of damage require materials to enact repairs. If the Ark’s magic Core is destroyed, a replacement must be found to allow movement.

I read the prompt several times, memorizing it. It wouldn’t be funny if I missed something. Under the paragraph was a list of types of vessels. The only description I got was a name, after that was a single picture. Some looked like large land vehicles, while others appeared to operate on the water. At the bottom of the list, I found one that was surrounded by clouds. A vessel that could fly would be an asset that few people could boast about here soon. I selected the strange looking ark, I felt the name suited my situation as well.

Ark Created. Use the Skill again to summon your ark. The Golden Garden.

My hand started to tingle, and I lifted it as molten metal appeared out of nowhere. A sword took shape with a beautiful golden handle with rubies in place. This was a masterwork that kings would drool to have.

Ark Key Created. Use key to summon your ark to your location. Must be in possession to command Ark inhabitants.

That gave me pause. There were going to be people on the ark? At least it didn’t look like they were going to be hostile, but I worried that Encroaching Greed would affect them down the line. I still wasn’t sure exactly how the skill worked.

The sound of yawning came from behind me as Rai moved up next to me. “What is that?”

“Part of a skill. It looks beautiful, but its mainly for decoration.” I didn’t plan on risking the item in combat unless I had absolutely no other choice. Storing it in my Storage, I turned to take Rai in. “See well?”

“About as well as you can expect. The roars kept waking me up.”

“Fair enough. If you’re ready, I was thinking of making for the edge of the city today.” I turned back to the edge of the building and pointed to a large building about fifteen blocks down from where we were. A large supermarket was there that I wanted to try for. “Not sure if it has already been raided, but it might be a good spot to get food and other supplies before we leave. Plus, the edge of the city is only another thirty or so blocks from there.”

She squinted but nodded in agreement. “Raiding house for food might be a good route, but it is very time consuming. Some might be busts if the inhabitants didn’t stock much food.”

With our plan set, we went downstairs and explained the plan to the others. I could tell a few of them still hadn’t decided. Unfortunately, I couldn’t give them any more time to decide. Things like supplies went to the first person to get to them. If we waited too long, someone else would take our prize.

“I won’t stop anyone from trying the houses, but I’m heading for the supermarket. We still haven’t seen any indication of a large survivor encampment.”

One of the women raised her hand up slowly. “You… you really won’t leave us if we ask to come along. And… and you won’t try to have your way with us?”

I facepalmed, but that was a fear that was well deserved for anyone that didn’t have the strength to fight back. Before I could reply though, Lara wrapped her arm around mine. “Don’t worry! Aurum can do whatever he wants with me. I’m sure I can keep him entrained enough.”

I glared at the woman, but it actually served to calm the others down a considerable amount. I felt a tug on my other arm and found Rai pulling at my sleeve while hiding her face in her hood. I glanced between the two women before I gave a small smile and shrugged. I wasn’t worried about the foreseeable future, considering our lives were on the line.

“Anyone that wants to come will be able to take part in any supplies we come across and until you are able to defend yourselves, I will do my best to protect everyone.” A big promise when I could barely protect myself. Rai had already saved me numerous times, but whatever needed to be said to help the women feel more comfortable.

After everyone had breakfast, we moved out onto the street. My knight order was refreshed, but I was going to wait until I needed them before summoning them. We picked up the pace from yesterday and moved down the streets with little opposition. Rai and I spotted piles of dead bodies every now and then meaning Knight must have put in a full night’s work in cleaning the streets.

Rai threw up here arm as we were about to cross another street just before a shadow passed over us. At first I thought it was a jet, but when the lack of jet noise registered, I realized that it was something else. The shadow banked before it turned and started back toward us.

“That can’t be good,” I said before motioning everyone to take cover.

The shadow was soon close enough that I was able to see it was a giant bird the size of a jet. It crashed through a building before it came to a stop facing us. The dust from the damaged building serving to hide some of its features. “Damn it! I think its another boss!” Rai shouted in between coughs.

“Great! What do you think, weaker or stronger than the cyclops?”

“Hard to gauge. It’s a different type so while it might be weaker compared to the cyclops, it might be harder for us to defeat.”

We didn’t get long to think about it as a stone shard came flying from the dust cloud and slammed into my chest. I was blown back, but didn’t suffer anything else other than cracking my head on the wall behind us. The gold thread in the suit really did make it like a suit of armor for me. I pushed off the wall and dusted myself off.

“Well that was just rude,” I commented pulling the spear from my storage. With a screech, the bird glared at me obviously pissed that I hadn’t gone down easily. “Early bird gets the worm. That is the say, but in this case, the worm isn’t going down without a fight!” I kicked off the ground charging right down the center with Rai flanking from the left.

Another stone shard flew at me, but I was ready this time and managed to side step it. Once I was close enough, I leapt spear point leading. With a spray of blood, the spearhead shank into the bird’s chest and even some of the pole was buried. I kept one hand on the spear, and used my other to pull the katana from my storage.

I waited and Rai delivered a heavy blow to the side of the bird. Using the moment, I swept the katana around as fast as I could, which with my gold enhanced stats was fast. The blade bit true and another spray of blood washed over me. The bird struggled for a few more seconds before bloodloss brought it to the ground.

I hopped down and looked at my suit which was now dyed red. That was until it absorbed the blood on it. I felt something about it changed, but nothing I did outright told me what the change was. I decided to look into later and cleaned my spear and katana on the feathers of the bird.

“Think you can put this in your storage?” Lara asked poking at the giant bird. “I don’t know if its edible, but we’ll have to find out at some point.”

I placed my hand on it and the corpse vanished with a swirling of light. “Looks like I can.”