Chapter 69 The Prophecy

“Mmh” Jay was a little sore from sitting cross-legged on the hard dungeon ground for the last hour, rubbing his back as he got up.

“Mana is full, time to move.” Jay made his way towards the stone soldiers once more.

In this world, the monsters in a dungeon would respawn when someone enters the dungeon or after a certain amount of time – of course, unique items from slain monsters would only be dropped once.

As Jay made his way back to the soldiers, he had a happy spring in his step as he began to think about his previous trip to this dungeon, and how easy it would be now that he was more familiar with it.

“This is kind of fun… Am I having fun?” Jay was surprised to find himself thinking this.

“I think if I didn’t have the need to become stronger I would probably be doing this anyway… I think I quite enjoy just having these adventures… I suppose I need to do it for power, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun.. Anyway, it’s not like I’d simply enjoy being powerful…”

He reasoned as he walked towards his victims, “Gaining power for the sake of it seems to be a waste of time. I’m glad I have at least found enjoyment in the small trivial things, it would be quite depressing if there was nothing special – even more so if I didn’t recognise the special things that came across my path…” he considered as he thought about the majestic large bird-creature he witnessed, the glowing cavern in the silt-wolf dungeon and even his simple life as a butcher as he smiled gently to himself, walking down the hill.

“I bet somewhere out there, in this world, past the endless forests, there’s beings out there with great power that find no enjoyment…”

[Immortality Research 3%]

“Oh?” he raised a brow, “I guess another page of the book is ready…” he was almost within aggression distance of the stone statues.

“I’ll have to read it after this dungeon; It’s a little hard to focus in here.” he thought, continuing down towards the soldiers, readying his hammer..

Jay began the fight, using the same strategies he did previously – fighting one statue at a time while he kept the second statue behind the first one.

The fight seemed much easier this time, and their moves seemed much more obvious to Jay; they even appeared more slow.

“How did I even get hit before? Yikes…” he looked at the large stone sword flying towards him before dodging it.

“Perhaps this is the difference between having full and empty mana.” he thought as he easily predicted their slashes and weaved between them.

“It’s like my mind is faster with full mana…. Or maybe it was just slow before… huh, maybe my body is slower with low energy and my mind is slower with low mana?”

Previously, they seemed like veteran warriors, each of their strikes making menacingly dangerous noises as their weapons coursed through the wind – yet now, the sweeping sounds coming from their weapons was more like an early warning sign, and now it was like he was fighting with a couple of lazy couch potatoes; people who thought that simply having a big weapon would make them strong.

“Well, having a big weapon just means you have a small… mana pool.” he mischievously smiled to himself.

Jay easily ducked in and out, smashing his hammer on their heads and dodging the large stone swords. To the stone statues, it would have been like fighting a completely different person.

As Jay fought, he didn’t realise, but a smile was beginning to form on his face.

“This is…. Pretty fun?” Jay chuckled, landing another hit and taking the first statue down.

“It feels like there’s a sort of flow to the fighting.”

After he found out about his necromancer class, he seemingly lost his sense of adventure and enjoyment, turning his last few days into a tense struggle to survive, but now he had some breathing room, and was beginning to feel more enthusiastic and energised.

Before he knew it, the two stone soldiers were both in rubble on the ground.

[35 Exp][35 Exp]

“I guess time flies when you’re having fun.”

Jay looted them, but was surprised to find that they didn’t drop any soulstones.

“Hmm… at least I got another one of those helvetian rings.” He stored it in his inventory to sell later at the market.

Jay dashed off to fight the next two statues with a spring in his step. While the dungeon was dark and dreary, his mood was cheery, and it was like he had rediscovered his joy again – the adventurous feeling he had when he first woke up on his day of awakening.

“Next.” he said, beginning to jog to the next set of stone statues.

“Last time, I fought two sets of swordsmen and then two spearmen statues. My health still hasn’t recovered… but I don’t plan to get hit again.”

Checking his HP, it was 77/82. This was still high enough for Jay, so he wasn’t worried.

The next two statues were on the next street ahead, and he was still outside of their aggression range – they hadn’t noticed him yet, so he made a plan.

“I’m just going to run up, jump, and smash it’s head in before it fully wakes up.”

It wasn’t a plan.

True to his word, Jay ran up to the stone soldier. It’s head turned and gazed at him before it’s body started waking up.

“Its going to be close” Jay thought as he sprinted towards it. He put away his shield and hammer to run faster.

“Asklin!” he activated his boots, dashing forward and closing the distance lightening-fast before jumping up high. With his hands over his head, he took his hammer out of his inventory, it appeared in his hand and he held it in a two-handed grip for extra damage.

“This shit be too easy!” he said with a smile as he brought the hammer down, smashing on its stationary head with two hands, crumbling its helmet and cracking its skull.

[24]

“A critical hit! And I did double damage since I used two hands, nice!”

The force of the blow sent the soldier stumbling, Jay almost felt sorry for it. It was such an easy attack to pull off that he wondered why he didn’t do it before.

Jay pulled out his deathwalkers sentry shield, one of the stone soldiers was heavily damaged but the other one had just woken up.

“Kill the damaged one.” Jay commanded his skeletons as they sprung into action and wreaked havoc on the poor confused stone statue.

Before Jay even started fighting the second soldier, the first one was dead, slain mercilessly by his minions.

[35 Exp]

Jay easily dodged the first swing and thumped the second soldier on it’s head, meanwhile his two skeletons started harassing it at its sides, and it wasn’t long before it fell to the flurry of hammers.

[35 Exp]

Jay proudly smiled “It would be even quicker if Blue and Sweeper were here.” he then felt a weird sense of sadness “…Do i miss my skeletons?”

“Grow up man…” Jay said to himself “they’re just a product of a skill…” he chuckled at his weird thoughts before looting the statues and pressing onwards, deeper into the ruined city.

[Helvetian Ring]x2

– – –

An old man in robes was inhaling some blueish-white ashes through his nose, giving himself visions.

“Mountains of flesh.. visions of death… visions of skeletons… visions of necromancy…” Albin said quietly before realising what he was seeing, his pure-white eyes bulged as he screamed in the underground room.

“Necromancer!” he caused his chains to rattle as he yelled. “Nh-NECROMANCER!” he yelled as loudly as he could, his hands shaking from fear.

“We must prepare… stop the war… we have no choice… A great threat looms in the future, death is coming, a new king, war and peace.”

The frail old man seemed to sound as if he was begging, his voice solemn, waiting as he listened to the guards’ response.

“It will be reported.” the guard said before rushing off, he sounded alert after Alben’s yelling. It was quite out of character for the old man to show such emotion after seeing his visions.

Alben sighed after the guard left. He had a unique class which allowed him to see possible futures, and he was currently a prisoner of the mage hunters, otherwise called the ‘safety bearers’; he was not dangerous enough to execute, but his class made him useful enough to have him imprisoned, so they simply did it. The mage hunters answered to no one.

Normally, out of spite, Albin wouldn’t bother to share most of his visions, but this would be something that would affect all of them, something that would shake the world, turning entire nations upside down. Even though he was imprisoned, what he saw and felt during his vision made his skin crawl.