ALEXiThymiA: Chapter 126 Swords Before Nine (Patreon)

Chapter 126

Swords Before Nine

“Great job by the way, ho…Aru’ka.” Judge began, nearly giving away her close familial relationship with Alexa, by her near inadvertent use of the word honey, fortunately she caught herself in time. Still the drones that were hovering around, recording everything likely caught the flub, something she would just have to deal with. “But, why did you go to such extremes with the corpse of the dragon? Blowing up the decapitated skull and the heart of the dragon?”

At that Alexa still wearing her full costume and mask just turned her gaze towards Judge, her mother, and answered succinctly. “It was a necromantic dragon.”

Silence.

“Again though, was that overkill?” Judge asked.

“No, I tend to agree with her. Tripel tap the necromantic dragons, separate the head from the heart, then put one explosive into the head and the heart for good measures. No, I think we should make these textbook steps on what to do, maybe even make it standard for dealing with all dragons, period, not just the necromantic ones.” Warder, Alexa’s father said, as he kicked one foot at the body of the dead dragon.

Judge just looked at her husband, then back at Alexa, then shook her head. “Fine.”

“Good morning, Florence Stonecroft, with BSC 11, can you tell us what it was like to take down not just one but two dragons?” An attractive looking news reporter asked, with a large man carrying a shoulder mounted camera asked.

Realizing the question was directed at her, Alexa thought about the question, then discarded the first few answers that immediately popped into her mind, then answered truthfully, but in a slightly guarded way, “about what you’d expect.”

Florence just nodded her head, trying to get the stoic Alexa to go on, but she just held fast to her answer. Realizing that question was over, Florence busily continued, trying to take advantage of being the first one to make it out on the scene. Truth be told she and Arthur, the cameraman had been holed up nearby, ready to roll into London to get an after action report on what happened. That was of course before the sighting of the second dragon caused them to abandon their vehicle and hide in a nearby neighborhood.

Then they heard the moment the dragon was killed. First they knew something had changed when the intense rain that had been pouring buckets moments before suddenly stopped. That was when they first ventured to look out. Then despite the intense rain clouds covering everything, the glowing bubble of light still covered the countryside, but there seemed to be hope, at least that is what Florence thought as she directed Arthur to start recording. Then she drove the van while he filmed their approach to Stonehenge. Once there, they saw something truly amazing, they saw piles of demonic monsters being bisected. A warrior in black was moving so quickly that it looked like there were four of her.

Then when they got close they saw the warrior first decapitate the dragon, then watched as copies? Of her charged forward and detonated inside the beast, leaving behind only an afterimage of the warrior. Florence had never seen such intense killing strikes before, after witnessing the strikes, it was no wonder how she managed to kill not only this dragon, but the dragon in London as well. Not to have this golden moment of reporting brilliance wasted, Florence pressed on. She had everything here, the hero, a legendary dragon slayer who was both calm and stoic, a female Super who was on the cusp of becoming something great, and here she was, the only journalist within thirty kilometers who had the guts to purposefully drive towards the still living dragon just to get the scoop of the century.

“How do you feel, knowing that you saved the hundreds of people.”

“Slightly cold.”

Chuckle.

At that Florence had to laugh at how tough this was, getting an answer from her was like pulling teeth from a hen. “Well that is English weather for you. I notice you did this one without any elven support. Did you not have any support coming? I mean clearly Warder and Judge are here from the states as well. But from what we saw, they got here after the battle was over. Did you really not need the help?”

At that Alexa paused for a second, then slightly tilting her head to the side answered. “I can always use assistance. But in this case, time was at a premium, so I just acted.”

“You just acted. Well thank you for that, as I don’t know where I, where we would be without your efforts.” Florence said, gesturing to both herself, and to Arthur the cameraman. “Hopefully this broadcast will find its way to your friends and family back home. Do you have anything you would like to say?”

At that Alexa just nodded, picking up the massive sword that was on her back, she pulled it out to expose it. As she did, the sword glowed and hummed with layers upon layers of magical stability woven into it. Gesturing with her head to the sword in her hands, she said three words, “swords before nine.”

“Swords before nine? Do you care to explain that, or to give us a deeper hint as to what that means?” Florence asked, as she like most of her viewers would not understand the statement.

Putting her magical glowing sword that distorted the air around it away, Alexa answered succinctly, “no.”

With that Alexa not wishing to talk anymore began walking away, a clear sign that she was now done with the conversation.

At that Florence just shook her head, “you heard it here first. Swords Before Nine.”

It looked like Florence was about to try to push for more, but that was when Warder stepped in. “Perhaps I could be of more assistance with answering some questions.”

“Yes, audience members, we have a special treat, recently not so retired American Super Warder is here with us. Warder, how would you say you got here?”

“Well, I am glad you asked…”

***

Hearing their conversation, Alexa began walking away further. She had a lot of system messages to go through. The message “swords before nine.” Had been a direct message to her brother, the meaning she hoped was as clear as possible, send her to a dungeon that dealt with improving her swordsmanship skill before she went on to Stage IX of the Trials of Ascension. It was clear from this last battle that she and by extension her clones could benefit from more training with a sword. As she noticed that she and her clones both had to mostly muscle their way through their opponents, there was no real skill, just pure strength.

As for why she couldn’t just call her brother and tell him the message directly, well there were a number of problems with that. The first and most obvious problem was that she no longer had her phone watch, as she had to sacrifice it when it would not end the call and went to an automated message that pronounced her location loudly. Only later on did Alexa learn that this was actually a trap set up by the elves who wanted to use her as bait to lure out the dragon and strike at the dragon, while she was burnt to a crisp in a spray of corrosive dragon breath. Fortunately, Alexa had been able to get away from the dragon, kill the backstabbing elves, then slay the dragon in an epic effort of retribution that no pocket watch, phone enhanced or otherwise ever received.

Now that she was safe, and no longer had to worry about her phone being used to lure dragons towards her, she still couldn’t trust the safety of the likely compromised phone networks. Especially as she didn’t realize if this was a product of her being in England, and the elves having greater control over British telecommunications services, or if this was a worldwide issue that she now faced. Her rational mind told her to assume the worst and work her way back, this was a sentiment that her emotional mind also concurred with. Which was why she trusted the news to be sent out without editing, and she would just have to hope that her brother both got the message and understood its meaning. Honestly she didn’t know how she could have made it more blatant, she had the sword right there, he knew she was supposed to hit the ninth stage on her way back to the states, it shouldn’t be that hard. Especially as there were just three words, swords before nine. Honestly, if he didn’t get it, then there was likely no help for him.

Realizing that was all she could do about her communication problem, at least until she saw her pack in person and could explain her new fears, this would have to do. Realizing that it would likely take a few moments for her brother to get the message in the states, she began going over the results from her hours long melee, where she, along with three empowered clones of herself all killed hundreds of void creatures, something she could already feel being absorbed by her class.

The first thing she noted was that a few of her Titles had increased.

Dragon Slayer (22): All Magic abilities increased by 15% (330%). Magical effectiveness against all dragons increased by 50% (1,100%).

The first upgrade made sense and was something she had expected. Doing a quick look at the powers offered by this dragon, she saw that they were an exact copy of the ones the dragon she slew in London offered. Still not wanting to gain Necromancy, she decided to push the remainder of her absorbed energy towards improving her attributes. This was an act that she was again rewarded for, by finally increasing all of her attributes the required amount to gain a new application to her Attribute Increase title.

Attribute Increase (13): All Attributes increased by 10% (130%).

While that had been a welcome surprise, the one that came to her as the most welcome of surprises was her third and final title increase.

Solo Assassin (2->4): You single handedly slew four different enemies from four different enemy species that were 100 levels higher than your own. Reward: +40% attribute bonus when engaging any enemy in single combat.

Yes, looking through the explanation it appeared that both the Minotaurs and the large rodents that were apparently called Void Rats were both over level 100. Or at least certain ones of them were. Given that there didn’t seem to be a change in their overall appearances or abilities Alexa figured that they were all likely at or over level 100. Again, they were nothing compared to her enhanced copies of herself, but compared to her, they were relatively tough to take on. Fortunately, with these rewards alone she now sat at an increased of 30% to her base attributes, something that was greatly needed, especially for now, while she was still underpowered in the grand scheme of things. Once she got her permanent class and her attributes were allowed to increase, this power disparity would likely drop, but until then, she was woefully behind the curve.

Absorber Class Material Found: Would you like to absorb essence of Neophyte Minotaurs?

Yes, the description alone told her of the mountain she still had to climb, as she had a hard time fighting stuck and immobile neophytes. Had they not been pinned in place, and had she not had the overwatch of her clones standing guard over her, she feared what might have happened. “Yes.”

Energy gained. Do you wish to convert energy absorbed into class experience? Attributes? Or Neophyte Minotaur only powers?

Seeing the new prompt for “Neophyte Minotaur only powers,” Alexa made her choice easily.

You have chosen Neophyte Minotaur only powers. Powers available: Night Sight, Fire Walk, Fire Resistance, and Death Magic.

Seeing the message, Alexa chose both Fire Walk, and Fire Resistance, which were some of her most costly powers, accounting for 100 total absorber points, of course she had a total of 593 absorber points available. She knew she had killed more than two dozen of the creatures, but she was slightly surprised that she only got 593 absorber points for the haul. Did that mean that she only got credit for the ones she herself killed and not the ones the replicas killed? If so then this made sense, as she could recall only helping with six of the kills directly. Shaking her head, it just showed that she still had more to go. With everything she had wanted taken care of, she decided to push the rest towards her attributes.

Whoom.

Just like that the remaining 493 points were gone. Logically if they were a one to one correspondence, then she could expect to have needed 107 more points to get her next Attribute Increase title. The fact that she didn’t get it this time, meant that she was likely very close. That was why she pulled up the next class notification with bated breath.

Absorber Class Material Found: Would you like to absorb essence of Neophyte Void Rats?

“Yes.” This time, just like the last she chose to see the special powers that the void rats offered.

You have chosen Neophyte Void Rat only powers. Powers available: Devouring Bite, Void Walk, Void Resistance, and Corrosive Bite.

Seeing the options a slight wave of nausea filled her as she thought about having to bite things to enact powers. Just the thought alone was enough for her to not want either of those powers despite their possible utility. That left both Void Walk, and Void Resistance, both of which were items that she thought she could benefit from. Once again there was a huge mark up for these powers, she didn’t know if there was something about how different these creatures, were, or if it was just how hard it would be to convert the powers to something her body could use, but once gain the total cost of both of these came to 100. Fortunately again she had personally been responsible for the death of a dozen or so void rats, a fact that was seemingly concurred by the system that state she had over 1,145 absorber points to spend on this. Still this was more than enough to do two things. First, she purchased both unique perks that didn’t require biting, and secondly her Attribute Increase title improved not once, but twice more.

Attribute Increase (15): All Attributes increased by 10% (150%).

With that, she was finally done with her recent changes brought about by her hours long fight with the dragon and the rift to who knows where.

“So what are your plans now?” Bullford asked, his calm words pulling her out of her momentary reflection.

“Train.”

“You still think you need to train?” Bullford asked, a note of incredulity flowing into his words.

“Especially now.” Alexa said.

Looking around at the dead carcasses of large purple smoke covered mice and seeing the various body parts of hacked apart minotaurs, Bullford slowly nodded. “Maybe I should train as well.”

Alexa just nodded in agreement.