Zero Potential: Chapter 13 (Patreon)

Chapter 13

Magic, the most fundamental force of the world and simultaneously the part of the world that is the least known, yet the most constantly researched. Since the beginning of time people have clung to magic to hunt for prey, to fight off enemies of the night, and to advance society.

Magic can be an amplifier; in that it can be used to directly enhance the abilities of combatants. It can also be used as an Alternation, similar to what Terra did when she used the stone she gained on the fiftieth floor and channeled Light magic through the stone, in order to create a source of light that was able to interact with hidden traps of the dungeon.

Now she would be able to show off her full knowledge on floor ninety-nine, a floor devoted solely to the Arch Shaman. This boss, formerly the capstone boss of floor ninety, before the increased difficulty and shuffling around of floors thanks to choosing Survival Mode, was the pinnacle of pre-civilized magic.

When Terra first saw the Arch shaman, she was impressed and completely overwhelmed by the sheer power and control owned by the Arch shaman. She was so overwhelmed at first that she lost to him every time. Only when she was nearing her first trial combat with the being of ultimate evil was, she able to finally defeat the mage.

Now was different. Now she not only knew what the mage was capable of, but what he was meant to show. This Arch shaman, was little more than a talented and powerful adept of the craft, someone who was able to control all the base elements with a lot of power, but little control and even less adaptability.

Before Terra relied heavily on her strength, speed, and footwork to weave through the arcing beams of magical attacks that would be hurled her way. Now though, now she had a different plan of attack. Namely, just go in spells blazing and outmatch the arch shaman at its own game.

The arch shaman was one of the few levels of the dungeon that only had one monster present. The doorway leading to the arch shaman was sealed shut with five different locks of magic. If one had the time they could easily go around the catacombs and chambers nearby looking for the magic keys that would then be used to unlock each seal. Of course, this had its own dangers, as many keys were laced with poisons, or surrounded by various traps needed to disarm to get the key.

To her credit, despite having gone through ninety-eight straight floors, where she worked on improving different skills. She found herself doing the same with this floor as well. She went into all seven of the antechambers, found the five keys, disabled the ten traps set up, and even retrieved the two special items.

Item Gained: All Weather Cloak. This cloak has basic enchantments to protect the wearer from extreme temperatures. This cloak has been further upgraded to add a bit of obfuscation to the wielder.

Item Gained: Golden Stone. An ancient stone that brims with the powers of the ancients.

Both items were decent, as they could both be used in a myriad of different ways. The cloak could be worn or sold. For now, Terra decided to keep the cloak, especially with its upgraded feature, something that had been missing in the past iterations of her dungeon delves. The Golden Stone also seemed to have been improved, as before its description noted that it just glowed with the powers of the ancients. Now that this stone was improved, that meant that the items it could be used on would be that much more powerful due to this enchantment item.

The traps were also easily dealt with, most being simple wire traps, or pressure plates. The most complex trap was a new Detection Eye trap that seemed to have been added due to the increased difficulty of this floor.

Detection Eye traps were part of the old magic, and was said to be a dead art. The eye would scan a room with a lode stone attached, then once it found a moving target, the stone would activate and release a mind control spell, causing the user to be stuck in an endless loop of their own mind, until they finally died of starvation.

While Terra was hit with the spell, as she clearly did not expect the eye to be there, the spell could do nothing against her mental conditioning. As such, she ended the encounter and removed the Detection Eye from the wall where it was hanging and separated it from its arcane power source. To Terra, the arcane power source was by far the best item she had gained, as there were many ancient relics that could be unlocked and wielded, so long as one had a valid power source. Now that Terra had one such stone, her mind went wild with the number of ancient relics that she could steal and use her newly acquired power source on.

Many nations owed their heritage and initial founding to a distant relative who was able to find and wield an ancient relic.

At one time Terra had managed to touch the sacred relic, hoping that she could wield it against the being of supreme evil. Alas, the weapon was inert, and broken, no doubt from a pampered noble who wished to activate the great device by banging it against the stone vault. That was why, even in her past lives, even after she managed to find other ancient power sources, the item never activated.

However, just because one ancient relic was destroyed, didn’t mean there weren’t others. Even now Terra felt her mind burn alive with the different places nearby that all had ancient relics that were just waiting to be discovered and activated. Smiling to herself she added her third and fourth items obtained from this little venture into her inventory.

The third being the Detection Eye itself, and the fourth being the ancient power source that she put in a separate pouch in her underclothes.

What had begun as little more than an excuse to grind out experience with unlocking skill advancements turned into something far more profitable.

Trap Detection: Tier II: You have been identified as being able to identify traps. Your mental costs while trying to detect traps are 20% cheaper.

Disarm Trap: Tier II: You have been identified as being able to disarm traps. Your mental costs while trying to disarm traps are 20% cheaper.

Those were the standard two skills that Terra had been trying to improve by going through the different side passages and disabling the various traps. Yet, it was her finding and disabling of the ancient Detection Eye trap that gave her two more curious skills.

Treasure Hunter: Tier I: You have been identified as being able to identify ancient treasures. Your mental costs while actively hunting for hidden treasures are 10% cheaper.

Arcane Mechanic: Tier I: You have been identified as being able to manipulate and use ancient mechanical treasures. Your mental and physical costs while working with arcane mechanical devices are 10% cheaper.

Those two were the real ones that were needed and were the ones that she was certain would lead to her next life as an arcane treasure hunter. From all her past lives, she knew about many current and future discoveries that were going to take place around the world. With her foreknowledge and these new skill bonuses, she knew she would be able to gain the best items before the being of Supreme evil made their moves. This time, she swore she would be able to cut down the being of supreme evil right at the root, before he could begin to destroy the world.

Feeling empowered by her recent actions, Terra moved forward, making sure to leave the keys she had just so painstakingly uncovered and dropping them to the ground.

Clink, clatter, clink.

See there was one thing Terra learned after her further delves into magic. The magical locks that were actively holding the door shut, they were channeled locks, or locks that had been linked to the will of the arch shaman, meaning that by using just one of the keys was the same thing as both empowering the mage, and letting them know that a challenger was outside.

Terra also knew the one drawback from having so many locks in place, all of which were being held tight by the mind. Again, this was something that only dawned on her after so many trials and errors, but this dungeon was meant to train users. In this case, it showed the limitations of the old ways, of being self-taught. See, there were drawbacks to using your own will to empower certain constructs. While a sufficiently powerful will was enough to handle most tasks. There were certain limitations to such constructs, ones that Terra had been taught many times in her past by the supreme being of evil. Now though, now she had a chance to pay that knowledge forward.

Moving right next to the sealed door, Terra infused her whole body with a barrier of protection, then she charged up her whole body for an infused strike and then kicked out using the full force of her focused will and intent on the otherwise sealed door.

BOOM!

Terra kicked open the magically sealed door to the chamber. With that one blow, the locks that had been used to seal were forcefully severed. When severing like this occurs, a few things happen for the caster. First there is a backlash of power forcefully to the mind of the caster. Second, the caster of the ward is temporarily unable to wield the type of magic that was used to create the seal. Third, and probably the most important part for Terra right now, was that for a moment the recipient of such a backlash of power was momentarily vulnerable, as they would be stunned from the mental backlash, unless they had previously been affected by such backlash.

Gah!

The arch shaman cried out in gargled pain. Not even wasting an ounce of her momentum from her kick, Terra just continued walking forward and then lashed out with her tightly packed and tri-weave fused spell linking Ice, Water, and Lightning magic together in a deadly burst that was aimed squarely at the arch shaman’s heart.

Crackle-Boom!

The attack ended exactly how Terra had expected, even with much higher attributes and resistances, the damage she could exert in that one controlled second was completely devastating. Of course, this was no real surprise, as she had practiced for countless lifetimes to succeed at doing just this, taking one brief second and using that second to slay the most powerful creature alive.

The dungeon seeing her speed and accuracy even rewarded her.

Speed Casting: Tier I: You have been identified as being able to formulate complex magical spells quickly. Your speed and casting times for spells are 10% faster.

Seeing the notification, Terra nodded to herself as it was a skill that paid off a lot in her past lives.

Next came the drop, knowing that even though the overall attack seemed easy given that she used what amounted to a cheat, she still was surprised by the reward being offered.

Soul Bound: Arcane Staff of the Elements: This is one of the truly great ancient weapons of the past. The wielder of this staff will be able to harness any of the five basic elements of nature. Additionally, the casting range of all elemental spells is doubled for the user. Effect: Elemental Mastery Tier II, Elemental Casting Range X2.

Note: Empty socket.

Note: By bonding to this item without the aid of an arcane power source, the wielder will use their own soul power to use the Arcane Staff of the Elements.

Letting out a long sigh, Terra took the staff, instantly feeling it bond with her soul directly. Then realized that there was no other note about the previous item she gained, the Burning Eye of the Tiger. Would that mean she would use her own soul’s energy for this soul bound item? Right now, she had questions about what to do. Though suddenly in her mind a few things became clearer.

First was that the headmaster and professor Chan both looked exceptionally older in her past lives than they did currently. Now seeing the warning, she assumed their age was likely due to using soul bound items that only drew energy from their souls.

Wondering, Terra thought of the concern for using such items, and wondered if they would be worth it, but then she also wondered why she suddenly got the notification that bonding with this particular soul bound item would cause problems.

After a few seconds of thinking, the only thing that made sense was that she had recently unlocked the new skill Arcane Mechanic, which allowed her to break down arcane items. Thinking to herself, she wondered, and then pulling out her arcane power crystal from her pocket decided to hold the item up to her left eye, the one with the Burning Eye of the Tiger.

Would you like to add arcane power source to Burning Eye of the Tiger?

Seeing the mental message, Terra let out a gasp, as she realized that had she not done this, she would have likely burned away her life force before she realized what was happening.

Mentally, she selected yes.

Then just as easily as she got the arcane power crystal, it was gone.

Still, using the stone beat the alternative. Then thinking about it, Terra tried to interface with her Burning Eye of the Tiger.

As she did, a whole screen of options came up within her mind, there were many different things she could do with the eye. She could have it so it was constantly on and active, have it so that it was on whenever she met new people, or she could keep it in its current state, Self-Activated.

Seeing that it was already in the Self-Activated state made her relax slightly, as it meant that she had not, to her knowledge, used the powerful artifact so far. While she was certain that the Burning Eye of the Tiger would be invaluable later, she decided to wait and use the eye only when she was in dire circumstance, until then she felt it would be best to not use it at all.

“Now all I need to do is figure out what to do with you.” Terra said. Then holding the now soul bound Arcane Staff of the Elements, Terra brought up the menu with the staff. Or at least she tried to, but it seemed that the staff was unable to be interacted with. Either she needed a new power supply, or the staff was always on and activated. Realizing that she would need to find yet more arcane power cores, Terra decided that she had done everything she could on her current floor.

With every hurdle dealt with, Terra proceeded to enter the last and final floor. Mentally she felt that even if the crown offered on this last floor was in fact cursed, she was certain she should be able to at least neutralize the effects of the crown, thanks to her newly discovered skills and insights into the items being generated by the dungeon.

***

On the surface, a Diviner reached out, making contact with her sacred order.

“She has reached the hundredth floor.”

Garbled.

“No, I cannot follow her, as she has gone through Survival Mode.”

Garbled.

“I understand, and I will obey.”

With that, the secret communications ended, and the dark-skinned diviner rejoined her fellow classmates. Unbeknownst to her, a set of old and powerful eyes watched her, as she made her way back to rejoin the others.