Chapter 134 New Direction

[2000 Exp]

“Huh? Where’d that extra exp come from?” Jay had a confused smile as he stepped out of the dungeon.

“Oh yeah, the helminth… I guess exp doesn’t transfer through two dungeons?” he shrugged, glad the parasitic worm was still at work in the other dungeon; he made a mental note to visit it tomorrow and collect some new blue bones.

“I guess Anya went home.” Jay looked around the exit area, looking for her. It seemed that the other adventurers did too.

“Well, I’ll see her tomorrow.” he shrugged, not forgetting about the rings she still has for him.

While walking home, Jay began thinking about the last fight, analysing it.

“Hmm… things would’ve been bad if I couldn’t keep summoning skeletons… if I run out of mana it seems that I am as good as dead – even if I do have high strength, it wouldn’t really matter…” Jay was beginning to rethink everything once more as he was shaking his head.

“It’s way too convenient to summon a skeleton; way more so than having a few extra damage…” with a slow nod, he realised that he didn’t really even need strength.

“Hmm.. another mistake. At least I only put five points into strength…”

Jay checked his strength, sitting on 20; he was regretful but glad he learnt his lesson this early.

“That’s right… I’m a necromancer. Why should I have to fight? It’s below me.” a proud smile began to form on his face.

“My strength is good enough to defend myself anyway… From now on, all attribute points will go into energy. I won’t even need to worry about fighting if I can keep getting another skeleton to spring up; they will take damage for me, and they will swing their weapons in my stead.”.

“They will be as endless as my mana pool and my bone collection…” Jay gazed at his gauntlet containing approximately 670,000 skeletons.

“And I definitely won’t run out of skeletons.” he chuckled with a skip in his step, finally making it to the north bridge of Losla.

[75 Exp]

“Seventy five?” Jay raised a brow, wondering what that came from. The statues were worth either 35 and 40 or 90 and 100 exp for the sword and spear variants respectively. The silt-wolves were worth 200 exp, so it couldn’t have been them either.

That’s when Jay remembered the dihexapedes he set loose in the dungeon.

“Hmm, perhaps they killed one of those experiments…” he guessed, realising now that they must definitely be lower level if three skeletons could take one down.

Jay arrived at his butchery; Trenly had already cleaned up and went home, so Jay promptly went to freshen up before sleeping.

“Big day tomorrow” he thought as he got into bed, “going to try to copy my helminth’s spell, collect the blue bones, visit Viladore, get the rings off Anya, and craft so much shit,” he looked at his gauntlet, thinking about all the bones it contained before trying to get comfortable.

“…”

“Dammit…” he shifted uncomfortably, the gauntlet was kind of hard to sleep with on his hand.

– – –

~Losla, Adventurer Association~

The guards of Losla had all been into the dungeons here at least once. Some were not from Losla and had levelled up in other parts of the country, so many didn’t have too much experience with these local low-level dungeons. They would primarily enter them for the adventure or out of boredom, but this was a rare occurrence.

Losla was not a high level area after all – why would they go into a low level dungeon without much to gain?

Anya was sitting across from an adventurer association guard as she had dinner, discussing her latest adventure.

“What do you mean under the third pyramid? You do some digging or something?” one of the association guards asked Anya as he chewed on some steak.

“Uh, you know how you go down the left passage and -”

“Oh yeah, there’s that door you can’t get through.”

“Wh- Can’t get through?” she tilted her head to the side.

“Yeah, you know, that door with the magical bar. Even with my high level strength I couldn’t lift it” he shrugged “I guess it’s not meant to be opened.”

Anya sat quietly and sipped her drink, not wanting to raise suspicion as she was about to give something away.

“So… how do you conquer that pyramid?” Anya said as she put her drink down.

“Well, long story short – you can’t. If it lets you conquer it, we would be able to teleport back to it when entering the dungeon…” he ate a roasted vegetable off his plate, “did you make it to the boss yet? You want some tips?” He raised a brow.

“Hmm…” Anya usually liked to figure things out on her own, but this time, she made a concession – she hoped to be more helpful to Jay.

“Sure.” she nodded, eating some more.

“Well, there’s this monster up there with a single offspring – all you have to do is kill the smaller one and the large one will die. They’re soul-linked or something so it’s really easy” he shrugged.

“Oh… thanks” she smiled, “did you have to fight any of the giant statues by any chance?”

“The six guards at the entrance? Yeah? Of course?”

“No, I mean the giant statues” she pointed upwards “the ones taller than trees.”

He raised a brow, confused.

“Oh, you mean the statue-statues…? They are actually just statues.” he chuckled, “Just statues, they’re not gonna do anything.”

Anya pursed her lips in thought, “Ok, I see. So you can’t get through the door in the passage and the giant statues don’t move…?”

“Uh, yeah.” he seemed to go deeper into thought as he stared at his food for a moment.

Anya smiled and got up after it seemed like he was thinking about it too much. She didn’t want him getting suspicious or anything.

“Thanks for the tips. Kill the small one right?” she smiled.

“Hm? Oh. Yeah, the small one. You’re welcome.” he went back to eating his dinner.

Anya promptly took her plate to the dish area and went upstairs to her room.

“So… somehow we got into that room because of Jay and his skeletons. The door must not let humans enter… or at least the living?”

She sighed, “Even the dungeons treat him differently it seems…” she shook her head.

Anya was beyond disbelief at this point – when it came to Jay, it would be unusual if something weird didn’t happen. All she could think was ‘of course’ and accept whatever happened next.

“I’ll have to find him tomorrow, nice and early” she nodded as she closed the door to her room before getting ready for bed.

– – –

~Somewhere south of Losla, deep in the forest~

Lara and Lannister had made a small camp in between some large boulders hidden away in the forest; as enemies of the mage hunters they had to be extra careful, and since they arrived here they had been scouting and analysing Losla.

“Nothing out of the ordinary…” Lara reported after getting back from a night-time patrol, “there seems to be more guard patrols near the south side, but other than that – nothing.” she shrugged.

“Good. We’ll contact Sullivan tomorrow and hopefully meet the new recruits.” Lannister said, stoking the small camp fire once more.

They had made their camp in the midst a small rocky outcrop, hidden deep within the forest. They were far from the patrol range of the Losla guards – even hunters wouldn’t come this far south. They were completely safe – perhaps even too safe.

Of course, they had to be this safe – getting caught by the mage hunters wouldn’t mean death, it would mean an endless torture using vile magics to extract every piece of information from their minds.

Lannister expected Lara to sit down by the fire, but she began to leave the campsite again.

“Wait, where are you going?” Lannister stared at her.

“I found a bandit camp. I think the bandits all died though because it doesn’t look abandoned. It was like they all just got up and left a few weeks ago.”

Lannister smiled, regretting that he had to bring her along. Apparently she was here for his protection.

“So you’re going to loot it while we’re on mission?”

“Hey, what I do in my spare time is my business. I’ll be back later.” she said precisely, not letting him argue.

“Fine,” he shook his head, “just don’t stay out too long. There’s work to do tomorrow.”

“Work, work.” She said with a cheeky smile, hopping on a large rock as it began to levitate and soon was speeding off across the treeline of the forest; skimming past treetops as she passed by.

“Mmm…” she closed her eyes and smiled as she embraced the cool air flowing over her face.

“Somehow the air feels fresher in the real world.” She peacefully flew over the forest under the moonlight.