[DCI] Chapter 57 - Upgrades, People, Upgrades (Patreon)

“Something wrong?” Aisha asked, stopping behind me to peek over my shoulder at whatever I was focusing on.

“I muted the notifications earlier and it turns out a lot of shit happened.” I chuckled and raised my wrist to give her a better view.

“That certainly looks like a lot of shit. I completely forgot about this feature since my watch is still with your friend.” She snorted lightly.

“We should get you girls a few gadgets soon. Perhaps after this assignment. We might be decent on cash with the sales on arcanas and the clear rewards.” I turned my face to the side and left a gentle peck on her cheek.

Aisha smiled at me brilliantly and did the same. “Levia could use a thing or two, for sure. As for me, you don’t have to. I would lose my excuse to do this under the guise of having you show me my status and other stuff.”

Keeping the mischievous grin on her plump lips, she pushed herself into me from behind and wrapped her arms around my chest. Her considerable breasts pressed into my back with clear intention as Aisha rested her chin on my shoulder and acted as if she was directing all her attention to the face of my smartwatch. But, the way her fingers roamed over my front and her waist rubbed into my butt betrayed the real motive.

“At least let me get to the bed so I can sit on something comfortable before you lock me down like this.” I shook my head with a faint smirk. “Would you like to join us, Levia? There might be a few related to you.”

“Yes, please. I am interested in reading more of those detailed messages displaying our progress. It is a very fascinating thing.” The quiet Witch nodded lightly.

“It’s super exciting, isn’t it?” Aisha laughed openly. “We had to go through so much effort to check our numbers and skills. Who would have thought that you could find everything inside a palm-sized artifact.”

I somehow managed to free myself from my strong girlfriend’s hold and strolled to the bed, followed by the beautiful duo. Aisha and Levia had already jumped out of their gear, the former staying in just her sports underwear, while the latter walking around in the light gray sundress from the Woodman set, leaving her armored coat somewhere.

Obviously, the moment I seated myself comfortably on the mattress, the drakan lady instantly glued herself to my back once more. She even threw her legs around my waist, joining her feet together in front of my crotch. I squinted at her to force any improper ideas out of her head but she escaped with her gaze to the side, seemingly more interested in the nearby wall than my person.

With Aisha being so all over me, I thought that Levia would have a hard time joining us, but the calm Witch just sat right next to me and rested her shoulder against mine to get a better angle at my hands. Ignoring the sneaky grin slowly surfacing on Aisha’s face, I pulled out my phone to make use of its bigger screen and navigated to the submenu storing all the notifications I’d muted earlier.

“The list goes on, and on, and on, and on.” I whistled. “Let’s start from the top, I guess. These alerts should be the oldest ones.”

I tapped on the first entry and we took a look at the information it provided.

★━━━━━━━━━━★

Congratulations!

You have successfully identified and eliminated the Betrayer disturbing the operation of other Defenders inside your assigned Dungeon, saving the life of one person in the process!

In honor of your accomplishment, additional rewards will be distributed after the assignment is finished.

★━━━━━━━━━━★

“So, these people even have a name in this profession, huh?” I mused, rubbing my chin.

“Right. I’ve heard something like that in the past. It must have escaped my memory.” Aisha nodded, rubbing her chin into my shoulder. “Nice to know that we are going to receive a bonus for taking that bastard down.”

“Righteous deeds should be properly rewarded. I hope that they can compensate Lucas for the risk he suffered,” Levia added calmly.

“Compensate us, you mean.” I smiled at her. “We worked and carried it out together. I don’t think I would have been able to figure out so many clues without you, girls.”

“Awwwww, you are so sweet,” Aisha cooed into my ear. “Now, where’s my reward?”

I snickered to the side while shaking my head. I could already guess what kind of reward she would want from me.

Choosing not to get lured into the discussion about it, I tapped on the next notification and a small wall of text appeared in front of us.

★━━━━━━━━━━★

Congratulations!

Through defeating monsters and partaking in other activities, you have gathered enough experience to strengthen yourself.

Level 11 -> Level 13

Gained Attribute Points: 20

Class Ability Unlocked: Master-Subordinate Talent Draw (F)

★━━━━━━━━━━★

Congratulations!

As you push through adversity together, your Subordinate has gathered enough experience to strengthen themselves.

Aisha Erlivyre: Level 11 -> Level 13

Gained Attribute Points: 20

Class Ability Unlocked: Tectonic Stomp (F)

★━━━━━━━━━━★

Congratulations!

As you push through adversity together, your Subordinate has gathered enough experience to strengthen themselves.

Levia: Level 6 -> Level 9

Gained Attribute Points: 21

Class Ability Unlocked: Quick Draw (F)

Class Ability Unlocked: Dealer’s Flick (F)

Class Ability Unlocked: Summon Familiar (F)

Class Ability Unlocked: Contract Familiar (F)

★━━━━━━━━━━★

“Oh, wow. Now I kind of get the appeal of killing other Defenders.” My eyes widened slightly. “It’s obvious that we got all that experience from the Priest dude. When you combine that with the money you could get for selling the victim’s equipment, things might be at least a little bit lucrative.”

“And mind you, we are still distributing the gathered experience with an uneven split,” Aisha pointed out. “Even with the majority of it going to Levia, we still jumped up by almost two entire levels since I bet we were somewhere in the middle of eleven due to our previous encounters.”

“Defenders must be leaving behind much more essence than monsters created by the Dungeon. It is quite logical. Even if their levels are lower, the essence is much more condensed in all beings born outside of those tainted locations,” Levia added.

“Well, no matter how it works, it’s not like we can abuse this mechanic.” I shrugged. “I’m not planning on turning to the dark side and I don’t think we are going to stumble on evil assholes in every single Dungeon of ours. But, whenever we do, we should try landing the final blow.”

“I agree with your assessment.” The collected Witch nodded. “Personally, I only encountered one untrustworthy Defender and someone else dealt with them after their failed attempt at forcing us to make a mistake in front of the monsters.”

“In any way, we got a whole lot of new skills. Though, most of them landed in Levia’s pocket,” my drakan mate commented.

“Each of us still got something new so that’s nice.” I patted her head affectionately. “After Levia gets to Level 10, we will be able to even out the distribution even more. I guess this situation was a blessing in disguise since it sped up our plans to carry her throughout the initial levels.”

“I don’t think I had this ability in my previous life. Is it connected to the path you have helped me choose?” Aisha wondered out loud.

“Most likely. Let’s see what it does.” I opened the description of her new skill.

★━━━━━━━━━━★

Tectonic Stomp (F)

Gather an immense amount of mana in your foot before slamming it into the ground. Depending on the type and toughness of the soil or foundation underneath you, various effects may occur. If you hit a solid material, two blocks will be kicked up and crush your target. If you hit a soft or brittle material, you will create a deep crater around you, knocking your opponents off balance.

Available Uses: 3

Recharge Time: 8h

Wall Size: 3x5m

Crater Diameter: 10m

※ ※ ※

Primary Scaling Attribute: Fury

Secondary Scaling Attribute: Strength

★━━━━━━━━━━★

“Neat. More ways to stun my opponents. I can’t wait to see it in action.” An excited grin snuck onto Aisha’s lips.

“It fits you perfectly. And it’s not tied to a specific weapon. A great skill, especially against Skeletons. I bet the shockwave and the tremors are more than just strong against them.” I smiled too. “I wonder if we can combo it to make it stronger.”

“Combo it?” Levia glanced at my face, adorably furrowing her brows just so faintly.

“Ooooooooh. I think I know what you mean. Launch first and then Tectonic Stomp from high above. Maybe we can even fit Ground Pound in between to gain more velocity.” My overjoyed drakan girlfriend bounced up and down with enthusiasm.

“Looks like I’m already starting to rub off on you.” I chuckled and she snickered in response.

“Imagine adding Command, Encourage, and Berserk to it. I would be able to level entire buildings.” She squeezed me much harder in her bear hug. “Man, I want to go out and test it right now so bad.”

“We’ll have plenty of occasions to do that. There are more things for us to check out. Should we go with mine or Levia’s first?” I glanced between them.

“You have only one ability while there are three of mine. I believe we should first read yours,” Levia answered.

I followed her suggestion and brought it up next.

★━━━━━━━━━━★

Master-Subordinate Talent Draw (F)

As a true Overlord, you know your underlings inside out. Being one mind and body with your Subordinates and Bonded, you can draw from the pool of their skills and abilities to borrow whatever talent you wish to use for a certain period of time. If the rank of the talent is too high for your body and mind to fully utilize, it will be lowered to the limits of your capability.

Available Uses: 2

Recharge Time: 12h

Number of Borrowed Talents Held at Once: 1

Subordinate Talent Draw Duration: 1h

Bonded Talent Draw Duration: 6h

★━━━━━━━━━━★

“This is great!” Aisha threw her hands into the air. “I can’t even imagine what things you will come up with while having this ability! If you really can pick literally any skill from us then this is totally overpowered! Now I kind of want to see you use Berserk!”

“Oh, gods… I would go full Goblin Mode with my current Mental Fortitude…” I chuckled wryly.

“Don’t worry. I will be there to stop you from running amok. I think I know just the way to capture your attention even if you end up half-conscious of your actions. It might actually work much better with you like that.” She grinned at me devilishly.

I rubbed my forehead while sighing. “You just want me to smash you under its influence. My body would literally break from going way too hard.”

“Then we just have to ask our friendly Witch to concoct a potion reinforcing it. Or we can recruit a healer.” Aisha grazed her fingers alongside my jawline.

“Enough for now. Don’t make her uncomfortable.” I bonked the frivolous drakan on the head. “This ability certainly is amazing. I will be able to get your Darkvision whenever necessary. That might allow us to get a drop on our enemies in the future as I’m the only one without it in our current party.”

“The possibilities are endless. It is a very valuable ability, allowing you to support any of your party members in a situation where their own skills are not enough. I wonder how it works with broad talents like Ritual or Voodoo Magic, for example. They compile numerous spells under one name,” Levia shared her thoughts with a pondering gaze.

“There’s no boring day around you, I swear.” Aisha laughed once more and turned her face to look at the Witch by our side. “Alright. Let’s see what you got. Are you familiar with any of those skills?”

“Yes, I am. Summon and Contract Familiar are one of the staple abilities for a Witch. It is surprising that Quick Draw appeared this early, but I assume it is due to the fact that I started using arcanas much earlier in this life and focused on them a lot. It is the skill to draw the card I want from a stack. As for the last one, I do not think I recall anything with such a name,” Levia explained.

“I see. Let’s take a quick look at what the System says about them.” I brought up their descriptions.

★━━━━━━━━━━★

Quick Draw (F)

Reaching into the deck you personally organized beforehand, you will always pull out the card you want, as long as there are still copies available to be picked up. If you condense your mana in your fingers and snap them, you will trigger Instant Draw instead and the desired card will appear in your hand, ready for immediate use.

Instant Draw Uses: 3

Recharge Time: 6h

※ ※ ※

Primary Scaling Attribute: Mystique

Secondary Scaling Attribute: Agility

★━━━━━━━━━━★

Summon Familiar (F)

Send a call through the fabric of dimensions and summon an entity to adopt as your familiar. Just summoning them does not guarantee their agreement to accept you as their master. You need to form a pact with them through Contract Familiar to properly form a bond between the two of you. An uncontracted entity can still assist you with your request even though they are not obliged to.

Available Uses: 1

Recharge Time: 168h

※ ※ ※

Primary Scaling Attribute: Intelligence

Secondary Scaling Attribute: Wisdom

★━━━━━━━━━━★

Contract Familiar (F)

Enter a pact with a summoned familiar to become its true master. The bond will not form unless both sides accept each other completely. Each side is entitled to present its conditions for entering the pact.

★━━━━━━━━━━★

“Is that a seven-day cooldown?” I blinked a few times. “Damn. That’s harsh.”

“It is.” Levia nodded gently. “Otherwise people would be able to abuse it and keep summoning new entities to try and coerce them into assisting the summoner with their issue without forming a contract almost indefinitely. Besides, this kind of magic consumes a lot of mana and vitality so only the strongest Defenders would be able to use it consecutively.”

“What kind of things can you summon with that ability? I assume it’s nowhere as impressive as actual Summoning Magic,” Aisha asked.

“You are correct. While the strength of the familiar depends on the one casting the spell, the entities that answer are usually considered critters or are generally small, possessing minor abilities that might be very situational. Oftenmost, Witches summon them for comfort rather than purely offensive means since our kind is quite solitary.” Our Witch companion showed a barely noticeable reminiscing smile.

“So, something like Rose, right?” I reached up to stroke the adorable Pixie that zoomed to us the moment she’d heard her name.

“That could be an accurate assessment, yes.” Levia gently patted the enthusiastic orb of pink energy after Rose flew to her.

It was quite obvious that the two got along quite well.

“Witnessing the summoning and contracting will certainly be an incredible experience.” For a moment, we petted Rose together, finding each other’s eyes in the meanwhile. “Should we check the new one now?”

Receiving a silent nod in response, I brought up the last ability.

★━━━━━━━━━━★

Dealer’s Flick (F)

Condensing mana in your fingers, you can launch the card you are holding with an increased force, making it fly much further than through normal means. Your control over its flight path is much greater too. At higher ranks of this ability, you can even affect it directly.

Available Uses: 3

Recharge Time: 2h

※ ※ ※

Primary Scaling Attribute: Mystique

Secondary Scaling Attribute: Strength

★━━━━━━━━━━★

“I do not recall having this ability in the past,” Levia commented.

“Interesting. Maybe it was influenced by the cards we made together? They are certainly a bit heavier than what you were using during your first run since metal is still metal. You are also focusing on them from much earlier, I guess. I wonder how we can make effective use of this.” I squinted my eyes and pondered.

“There are some spells that activate around the arcana or from the card itself. There are also some that I do not usually consider since they might be harmful to the caster due to their nature. This ability might allow me to throw them at our enemies, removing that personal hazard from the equation. The range of spells I can imbue into my arcanas should rise considerably. It is a very useful skill that could have changed a lot when I was alive.” She sighed a bit dejectedly.

Aisha placed a hand on her shoulder. “You are alive. And dare I say, you are in a much better situation than before. With Lucas by your side, you can grow much stronger than your past self while fully focusing on your talents instead of having to divide your attention due to fighting alone. And I think you have already realized how helpful he is, haven’t you?”

She stared at Levia while showing a warm smile until the Witch made a curt nod again. “Yes, I do have. I have advanced my techniques much further during these ten days here than during over half of my lifespan. I truly appreciate the help and guidance you two provide me with.”

“I did nothing. It’s all on this overly-thoughtful human male. You should be thanking him, not me.” Aisha gestured at me with her eyes.

“Thank you, Lucas.” Levia respectfully bowed her head.

“That’s too much. Get up.” I chuckled quietly and brought her back up. “I’m only doing what every leader or superior should, which is making sure that their subordinates are comfortable and are provided with enough chances to develop their skills. Your strength is my strength, in the end. And I don’t mean the skill I recently unlocked. But, you are welcome.”

“You are still too humble. It looks like I need to raise the intensity of my true drakan male behavioral training to properly get through to you.” Aisha snickered and started drilling her fist into my side.

I giggled a little as her actions tickled me quite a bit. “Calm down! I thought that was one of the things you found me attractive for! Are you going to change me for the worse?”

We fought for a minute or two as I attempted to stop my playful mate from torturing me. At one moment, I thought that I’d seen a mild smile on Levia’s charming lips as her face flashed in front of my eyes but it was gone after we finished our battle with Aisha.

“Okay, Mr. Attractive. Carry on with your duty now or we won’t get to the end of this before the sun sets down.” Aisha snickered and put my phone back into my hands.

“Thank you for the permission, Mrs. Attractive. Where have we left off… Ah. I see.” I found the last notification and brought forth the next ones.

★━━━━━━━━━━★

Through continuous training, practice, and combat experience, your abilities have become stronger.

Mental Fortitude (E) -> Mental Fortitude (D)

Handaxe Proficiency (E) -> Handaxe Proficiency (D)

Transfer Lifeforce (F) -> Transfer Lifeforce (E)

Transfer Spirit (F) -> Transfer Spirit (E)

Summon Bonded (F) -> Summon Bonded (E)

Recall Bonded (F) -> Recall Bonded (E)

Armsweaving (F)-> Armsweaving (E)

★━━━━━━━━━━★

“That’s a lot of upgrades. But I can see how they could have accumulated at this moment. Half of them are related to fighting while the other half is related to me assisting you girls after the battle.” I rubbed my chin.

“Your Armsweaving is finally going up. Nice.” Aisha patted me on the chest as she’d returned to acting like a koala on my back. “Just a little bit more and you’ll get your second title.”

“No way it will come that fast.” I laughed it off. “But, out of all of them, I’m curious about the last one. Can I now bond with more weapons?”

I checked the updated description

★━━━━━━━━━━★

Armsweaving (E)

As a powerful Overlord, you can dominate, bond, and command an entire arsenal to follow your orders, be it swords, axes, hammers, or even shields. Rain down weapons at your enemies without lifting a finger, using your domineering presence as the fuel of your armory.

Effective Range: 25 m

Available Bonds: 2

Bonded Weapon’s Mana Usage Reduction: -40%

Bonded Weapon’s Weight Reduction: -35%

Bonded Weapon’s Range Increase: +35%

※ ※ ※

Primary Scaling Attribute: Charisma

Secondary Scaling Attribute: Leadership

★━━━━━━━━━━★

“Looks like you can. That’s great.” My drakan girlfriend squeezed me harder.

“The values increased too. The ability has become more effective and efficient,” Levia added in a sagely tone.

“Yeah. It’s a good rank-up. Let’s move on.” I scrolled further.

★━━━━━━━━━━★

Through continuous training, practice, and combat experience, the abilities of your Subordinate have become stronger.

Berserk (D) -> Berserk (C)

Launch (E) -> Launch (D)

Impairing Blast (F) -> Impairing Blast (E)

★━━━━━━━━━━★

“Nothing bad, nothing great.” Aisha tipped her head from side to side. “I don’t think there’s anything worth investigating deeper right now. I can check the small differences later. Go on.”

“Sure. Levia’s turn, I guess.” I complied.

★━━━━━━━━━━★

Through continuous training, practice, and combat experience, the abilities of your Subordinate have become stronger.

Hex (F) -> Hex (E)

Voodoo Magic (F) -> Voodoo Magic (E)

★━━━━━━━━━━★

“As expected. Those are the skills I use the most right now,” Levia stated.

“If your curses and hexes are getting stronger, I’m more than happy. They are just so amazing for both support and offense. I’m really glad you joined us.” I smiled at her.

Aisha did too. “I agree. Your magic is so fun. That fight when we were deaf was unbelievably exciting. Alone, I would have to come up with a solution to those monsters’ abilities by myself. And since I’m nowhere as creative as the two of you, that could take a long time.”

“I will continue practicing them then.” Levia slightly bowed her head.

“Alright. This seems to be all of them for now. That took a moment.” I stretched up while still in Aisha’s hold. “Time to count our money. The anxiety is fucking me up. I need to know if we flopped or went to the moon again.”

“What are we waiting for, then? Let’s get to your desk and check on our mercantile empire!” Aisha cheered and we crawled off the bed together.