Lifeblood Chaos: B1 Chapter 3: Not Alone (Patreon)

It seemed the achievements weren’t done with Ray. Not that he minded. He needed a little bit of time to recover from the ordeal. Needed some distractions from the boiling pain at too many places on his body.

[New Personal Achievement—Underdog Triumph!]

You’ve killed a foe a few levels higher than you. Good thing to realize is that discrete levels aren’t always what determines the winner in combat. Although, if the disparity is too great, hopes of an upset will be slim.

Reward

·       Reputation: +15 Tenacious, +10 Indomitable

[Reputation Threshold Crossed]

For reaching the 25-point threshold, your Tenacity has raised your Vitality by 5.

Ray groaned. The pain was making it hard to think. Hard to do anything, in fact. He couldn’t even be bothered to throw the corpse of the Feathered Imp off himself.

Weirdly, a part of him felt like it was a long day at work. He wanted to go home. To lie in bed, with the covers pulled over himself, and not get up unless some disaster forced him out.

He snorted. Well, this probably counted as a disaster.

A jolt of pain grounded him to the reality of his situation. He had to do something about the blood loss. Ray was thankful to himself for checking the stat descriptions before picking his class. He knew now that he could use his Vitality to heal from wounds. Question was, did he have a high enough Vitality to heal up a mangled toe?

Focus, the System had said. That was how one controlled the various functions the System allowed.

So, Ray focused. He imagined his Vitality filling up some sort of healing pool, the energy reaching out to his worst wound and reconstructing his body there.

The pain in his toe started to fall. It took about a minute, but soon enough, the wounds everywhere else felt far more intense in comparison to the state of his toe. Ray was pretty certain the injury he had directed his Vitality to wasn’t fixed completely. But it had worked enough to make it not as debilitating as it had been before.

One small toe, and even that wasn’t fully healed. He really needed to check his Vitality.

For the first time, Ray opened his Character Status.

[Status]

Raymond Dominick

Race: Human

Ascension Class: Arcanist [Common] [Tier 2]

Vocation: Tower Conqueror [Epic]

Path: Lifeblood Chaos [Legendary]

Level: 2 [80/150]

Mana: 70/70

Recovery: 0/120

Perks: Riotous Life

Gear

Raiment: Basic Robe [Torn]

Footwear: Plain Sandals [Half Destroyed]

Armament: Talisman of the Otherworld [Tier 2]

Stats

Vitality: 6 [+6] [Tier 1]

Resilience: 4 [Tier 1]

Strength: 4 [Tier 1]

Agility: 4 [Tier 1]

Intellect: 7 [+1] [Tier 1]

Spirit: 7 [+1] [Tier 1]

Reputation

Knowledgeable: 20

Chaotic: 20

Tenacious: 25 [Vitality boost: +5]

Indomitable: 10

Spells

Shatterclaw [Offensive] [Tier 1]

Mystic Knowledge [Passive] [Tier 1]

Arcane Aura [Passive] [Tier 1]

Lifeblood Sense [Utility] [Tier 1]

Skills

-

Ray found himself sitting up, his back propped against the rough wall of the cave. Alright, that was a lot of information. Seriously. He had four spells and he’d been forced to kill that monster with his bare hands?

Granted, only one of them was offensive, and granted, he had been attacked before he could have checked his Status. Still, it felt slightly annoying.

He was really hoping the rest of this Tier 7 tutorial wasn’t going to be like that. Wasn’t a tutorial supposed to a safe-ish place where he could learn stuff at his own pace? The only thing Ray had learned so far was how easily he could have died.

Anyway, spells.

Something told him that, even if he had known about them before the attack, he wouldn’t have been able to cast most of them anyway. Most didn’t look castable. Only the offensive one, Shatterclaw, looked like something he could actively use. Oh, and that last spell too, he supposed.

Ray focused on his abilities, willing the System to grant him more information.

[Information Request—Spells]

Below are the spells you currently possess.

Shatterclaw [Offensive] [Tier 1]

A primal spell that uses arcane energy of the omniverse to craft ethereal claws that inflict elemental damage. At Tier 1, this spell crafts three claws per cast with a maximum range of five meters and consumes 10 Mana. Can only be cast with a Talisman.

Mystic Knowledge [Passive] [Tier 1]

A mystic ability that preternaturally fills the caster’s head with the exact knowledge about any spells in their repertoire, as well as any Mana-borne abilities being used on the caster. At Tier 1, this spell provides the caster with all intuitive casting knowledge of all Tier 1 spells, and all Mana-borne abilities being cast on them, regardless of Tier.

Arcane Aura [Passive] [Tier 1]

Signature ability of Arcanists. A passive enchantment that boosts all the Arcanist’s primal sorceries and supresses the spells and abilities of enemies that use Mana. At Tier 1, boosts spell damage dealt by 10%, and reduces incoming Mana-borne damage by 10%.

Lifeblood Sense [Utility] [Tier 1]

A perception spell with the Lifeblood Chaos affinity. Allows the caster to sense all nearby sources of life. At Tier 1, the radius of effect for this spell is 10 meters.

Ray took some time absorbing the information. It was a handy distraction from the little torturous spikes needling him all over his body, and the darkness of the cave that now seemed so sinister.

He was going to have to test Shatterclaw. Although, the fact that it consumed Mana meant he couldn’t use it willy-nilly. Especially since he had no idea how quickly his Mana regenerated.

The other spells were all interesting in their own right. Mystic Knowledge was definitely working as intended. Somehow, Ray knew exactly how he was supposed to use Shatterclaw. He also instinctively understood that he would need to cast Lifeblood Sense like his first spell. The only difference was that it being a low-Tier utility spell negated any Mana costs.

Ray also understood that wasn’t the case for all utility spells. He was just lucky with this specific one.

What Mystic Knowledge didn’t tell him was whether this spell came from his Arcanist class, or if it was a basic spell any spellcaster received. Basic Perception certainly didn’t sound like something an Arcanist would specialize in. But if his Path had affected it, then why hadn’t it touched the rest of his spells? He was pretty certain Lifeblood Chaos hadn’t touched them.

His stats also didn’t make total sense. The numbers were fine, but why did the stats have Tier assignations to them as well? It felt redundant. There had to be some other reason they were indicated that way.

For now, he assigned all his free stats to Intellect. Getting more damage out of his spells was his main priority for now. Mystic Knowledge indeed confirmed it was his main damage stat.

Then there were his Reputation points. His Vitality had almost been doubled by the bonus he had received. Would the other categories boost one of his other stats once he crossed a threshold for any of them? He supposed he’d have to wait and find out.

Wait, and survive.

Oh, and then there was his gear. The Status helpfully described everything he had upon his person, including his latest acquisition. Ray looked around and found what he was searching for in a small pool of blood beside his dead assailant.

“Woah.” He whistled softly in appreciation, reaching over to pluck the Talisman from the murky puddle.

The Talisman was a small, flattish disc, dark gold in colour. It had the symbol of an open, beastly maw superimposed over an eight-pointed star. Nifty.

Ray gasped a little. Gleaming chains of black-red energy slithered out from the edges to wrap around his hand and between his fingers, pressing the plain side of it into his palm so that the maw with the golden fangs was facing him as he looked down. Oh, alright. So he wouldn’t need to hold it while he was casting. That was convenient.

Interestingly, the ethereal chains were slightly chilly. Comfortably cold, was the best way he could put it.

A quick focus brought up a handy description.

[Information Request—Talisman]

You hold a spell catalyst in your hand. Different spellcasting classes require different catalysts to cast spells. For Arcanists, this is a Talisman.

Talisman of the Otherworld [Tier 2]

A Tier 2 catalyst that boosts primal spells by 10%. Draw upon the boundless power of unseen realms to tear through the battlefield, trailing devastation in your wake.

Not bad. Better yet, he had one of his Objectives accomplished. Now to get the rest of them done…

After a moment, Ray decided to actually do something about his pain. He tried to direct his Vitality to some of the other wounds he had suffered. But the bleeding gashes on his arms and chest didn’t close up.

Right, of course. It had to be that Recovery stat he had used up to heal himself partially. Now he had to wait until his Vitality-gifted healing pool regenerated to full fix himself up.

Sighing, he went about it the old-fashioned way. Since this flimsy robe of his provided next to no protection, Ray tore off a few stripes and began binding his more serious injuries.

He bit down on a curse as he took care of his foot first. The sandal was practically destroyed, so he simply wrapped his whole foot with the cloth strips. Would make walking awkward, but it would be less painfully, at least. Hopefully.

Once Ray wrapped up his arms in the same manner, he got to his feet. He wobbled. Well. Looked like he was going to need to get used to this.

It made one thing quite clear. He wasn’t going to survive another head-on brawl with these monsters.

Speaking of which… ah, crap. Why was this cave so dark? Ray still couldn’t make out much of the Feathered Imp he had managed to kill, even when it was no more than a couple of feet away from him. He got the impression of a child-sized body, humanoid like a goblin’s, but covered with scratchy feathers and sporting a head that was both avian and reptilian.

There was no option to loot the creature. Even when he focused on it, he got nothing. Maybe high-difficulty tutorials didn’t allow loot till the end, or maybe this little grunt carried nothing worth looting.

He inspected the body physically for a moment, but there was nothing to take. Not unless he wanted to rip it apart, which he didn’t have the strength or tools to do anyway.

Whatever the case, Ray wasn’t going to bother scrounging desperately. He had to get a move on. The tunnels twisted as he began traversing through them at a careful pace.

Ray used Lifeblood Sense as he moved, keeping one hand on the craggy wall beside him. There was only one direction open for him. Forward. His heart clenched with every shuffling step. Even his breaths sounded too loud. All he could imagine was another trap waiting for him. That clacking in the distance he had first heard had gone silent. It only made him wary.

He might have killed the Imp, but it had left him too shaken.

When he used Lifeblood Sense, a staticky sensation spread outwards from him, crawling over the cave walls and suffusing the air. It remained in his surroundings for about thirty seconds, so far as he was able to keep track by counting.

The spell didn’t pick up any sign of life in ten meters. Ray assumed that if it had, there would be some sort of break in the static. At least, since a strange sort of “sense” extended out to the bounds of the static field, a break in the field would alert him to the presence of any other living things. Well, he hoped it would.

Ray found the answer a few steps later. Since it didn’t cost Mana, he could keep casting it as soon as it ran out. On the third cast, he detected a presence.

A monster on the wall. A few meters ahead, situated close to the ceiling if he was judging the break in the static field correctly.

Ray’s breath caught in his chest just as his heart started beating harder. Lifeblood Sense didn’t give him much of an idea of what sort of creature awaited him, besides a sensation that he could only describe as intensity. Somehow, the intensity from the creature he sensed was familiar, but tinged with urgency, desperation, and danger.

Another Feathered Imp. He was certain of it. Lying in wait to ambush him as the first one had.

Not on his watch.

Mystic Knowledge told him just what he had to do to take care of the little demon trying to jump atop him. Five meters for Shatterclaw. Ray scowled a little. This was going to be close.

He strolled towards the location of the monster. His heart pounded, the sound of his breathing and his footsteps fading as blood rushed past his ears. As much as he tried to appear nonchalant and not overly cautious, he couldn’t help every muscle tensing like drawn bowstrings. He really didn’t want another life-or-death struggle on his hands.

Once he was close enough, the Feathered Imp attacked. Just as he had suspected. Ray sprung into action at the same time.

With the Talisman in hand, Ray focused on Shatterclaw. He felt a surge of energy rush through him. Was that Mana? The spell activated with a burst of black and red energy, the same shade of colour as the chains leashing the Talisman to his palm.

The Imp’s vicious cry was cut short. Ray had timed it just right. Three burning black-red slashes materialized over him. He swiped his arm, the ethereal claws mimicking the motion at the same time as though he was remotely controlling them. All three slashes crashed into the Imp and sent it flying back, black blood raining down around him.

It should have been enough to kill the monster, but the Imp’s clacking cry didn’t fade. The monster was flying at his face a breath later.

Ray cursed as he involuntarily stepped back. He had thought one good cast of Shatterclaw would have been enough to kill the monster.

Tier 7 tutorial zone, he reminded himself. Of course the monsters inside these caves weren’t going to be killed so easily. That first one had nearly cost him his life, hadn’t it? Plus, there was the Tier difference too. A Tier 1 spell against a Tier 3 monster…

Just as the Imp reached him, Ray slashed his arm again. Shatterclaw appeared.

This time, he focused on the cast and tried to hold it. When the black-red claws caught the Imp, he used the ethereal arcs of energy to slam the monster against the wall. He continued the cast, dragging the shrieking monster along the rough, rocky surface while forcing the claws to dig deeper.

Ray only stopped when the Imp fell to the ground in three separate sections of bloody, chopped-up bits.

[Enemy Defeated—Feathered Imp]

Tier 6 Monster: Feathered Imp [Level 3] x1

Essence: +180

Mana Restored: +30

[Level Up!]

Reward

·       +3 Intellect, +3 Spirit, +2 Vitality, +4 allocatable free stats.

·       New Spell: Soul Sorption [Utility] [Tier 1]

·       Soul Sorption has been converted to Chaos Chymify by Path of Lifeblood Chaos.

Essence to Level 4: 110/230

Ray let his hammering heart calm down as he assigned his free stats to Intellect again. He sent out another pulse of Lifeblood Sense to make sure there were no more monsters near him before checking his new spell.

[Information Request—Spells]

Chaos Chymify [Offensive] [Utility] [Tier 1]

A primal spell that drinks in a portion of the target’s soul. Absorbed soul portion grants information about target to the user. If target dies, caster has the ability to select which portion of the soul will be added to the collection of souls in the Crucible of Lifeblood Chaos. At Tier 1, this spell’s range is limited only by caster’s sight, grants basic information about the target, and consumes 5 Mana. Can only be cast with a Talisman.

That was a lot to take in. A Crucible of Lifeblood Chaos? The spell description was strangely vague about it. Even when Ray focused on it, no further information appeared. Hmm. Perhaps he would find out more when he actually used the spell.

Information would be handy, though. A little disappointing the System wasn’t willing to grant him any easy or convenient skills where he could just look at a target and glean information about it. Oh well. Ray was looking forward to seeing the other parts of the spell take effect when he met his next Feathered Imp.

Interesting that he had received a portion of his Mana from killing the creature. Two casts of Shatterclaw should have spent less Mana than the amount he had recovered from his kill. Ray grimaced. He had dragged out the second cast, however, so overall, the balance turned out even. Besides, it wasn’t like he could hold more Mana than his capacity.

Could he? Maybe he could check later.

Also interesting the monsters were granting so much Essence per kill, Ray was levelling up rather quickly.

Seemingly low levelling requirements for now, though he could see it blowing up as he grew more powerful. Point being, Ray would probably come out of this tutorial at a pretty decent level, if these caves were as infested with the Imps as he was starting to think they were.

Ray decided to move on. As he walked past the monster’s corpse, however, he paused. The body… it looked…

He wasn’t a stranger to gruesome sights. Working in a biology lab had toughened his stomach against upending its contents at the slightest sight of gore. But this wasn’t any regular gore. The bile was definitely trying to climb up his oesophagus, but Ray couldn’t look away.

Not when he had a clear vision, even in the low light, of what his power was actually capable of.

The places where those ethereal claws had struck had twisted the very life matter there. Flesh had bubbled and turned somewhat liquid-y, bones had deformed into pretzels, blood vessels had hardened into spiky thorns spraying their congealed fluid. Ray didn’t recognize the organ underneath all that, partly because the organ had been reduced to a puddle of ooze.

Well, he was glad he wasn’t on the receiving end of that.

Ray got going. Stil no looting involved, but that was fine. His goal was to make his way out of the cave. Loot could come later. Ideally, somewhere along the way to the exit.

Continuous uses of Lifeblood Sense guided him forward. A handful more monsters came up. He managed to kill them without too much difficult since the monsters acted alone. Small blessings.

By the time he reached his first fork in the road, he had killed six of the little bastards in total. Four more Imps had taken him to level 5, nearly halfway to level 6 too.

His enemies were strong, but at least they yielded hefty Essence when killed.

As his level had increased, and his stats alongside them, it got a little easier to kill the monsters. His rising Intellect really was pumping out extra damage.

More importantly, one of his last level ups had also granted him the Map Fragment he was supposed to have earned. It wasn’t very decipherable. To Ray’s untrained eye, it looked too squiggly. He would need a bit of time to study it. But hey, at least that was another Objective complete.

The draft was coming in from one side of the fork, which was where the exit was likely to lie. A few twisting lines on the Map Fragment also confirmed it. It could also be a trap, but since he had a spell to rely on, that wasn’t as dangerous as it might have been.

In fact, as Ray took the leftward path for a while, he came to a stop when he found the trap awaiting him.

His tunnel opened up to a wider, taller chamber. Tall ledges hung on both sides. Feathered Imps were resting on the walls, but there were a group of them on the ledges too. Even if he managed to deal with the wall-hanging ones, the monsters on the ledges would attack immediately and turn the odds in their favour.

A fight over there would be suicidal. They would crowd around him, outnumber him in one fell swoop, and make short work of him. Those little bastards were tough.

But it wasn’t just the obvious trap that had stopped Ray from acting. He realized it might not be a trap at all. Not for him, at least.

[Warning!]

Mystic Knowledge indicates your presence has been detected by Total Perception [Tier 3]. Arcane Aura has been nullified by the presence of a stronger aura, Sylvan Pride [Tier 3].

Someone else was obviously there. Even worse, someone who was clearly significantly stronger than Ray. His skin crawled, like a magnifying glass was focusing the sun’s heat on him and scouring it over his entire form.

Ray was too far away to use Lifeblood Sense to detect whoever—or whatever—it was. Who in the world was over there? And more importantly, how was he supposed to find out? He couldn’t have come across the Feathered Fiend this soon, right? No way. Going in straight held too much danger. He had no idea what awaited him.

But he had another option he could potentially try.

Huffing in a quick breath, Ray turned around, resolving to discover just what lay ahead. Via a different route.