Chapter 75: Afflictions

Chapter 75: Afflictions

'Okay, note to self, no explosions underground.' I grumbled as I looked at the partially caved-in room.

I turned on my acid and, combined with my claws, quickly freed myself from the slight rubble that had fallen on top of me. The lack of a death notification confirmed that the rock elemental was still alive, and I saw the rubble consolidating and forming into its vaguely humanoid figure again.

'Damn, does it look bigger than before?' I wondered to myself.

Fire magic was clearly not the way to go against the rock, which left water and acid, or I could try to eat it with slime. Dewi had said my magic skills were falling behind my rogue skills, so I was leaning towards getting some more magic practice. While it was slowly freeing its limbs and consolidating the nearby rubble into itself, with my [Sub-Cores], we formed three groups of two and targeted the rocky legs of the elemental with [Acid Dart].

As if sensing my building mana, it turned to face me as the first barrage of spells blasted against its rocky hide. With [Mana Vision], I noticed that it was trying to reinforce its body by infusing the rock with more mana that shone brightly from its rock-crystal core. It felt like I was fighting an alternate version of myself in some ways, as it had a fragile core (according to Luke) protected by rock and even used [Mana Reinforcement].

As fast as I could melt its legs, it was reforming them, and I wondered if we would be trapped in a perpetual stalemate. I regretted not asking Luke for more information and wondered if I should ignore trying to preserve the valuable core. Since the creature did not threaten me, I kept this up longer. It took a while, but I noticed it was getting smaller each time it reformed, and some excess rock was sacrificed to reform its legs. [Mana Sight] also revealed that its aura of mana grew considerably weaker through each reformation.

'So I could destroy its resources or wait until it runs out of mana. Likely, that's how adventurers defeat slimes without damaging their cores. Well, unless they have crazy death magic like Simon.'

I cheered as I finally got a new spell. I read over the description while my [Sub-Cores] weakened the rock elemental. The spell was a debuff, and it lowered physical defense. While I wish it had lowered magical defense, I was glad to get a spell under the debuff template finally.

I ordered them to stop attacking the elemental, which was now only the size of a small dog. It had lost almost all available material, and its mana aura was sputtering out. I cast my new [Erode] spell on it, and much to my surprise, Gamma showed me its [Identify] profile.

[Erode] 30%: 4min remaining.>

'[Affliction Tracker]!' I shouted mentally. I had completely forgotten the skill since it was baked into [Identify]. It didn't help that shortly after getting it, I fought the undead, who were immune to all my afflictions at the time.

When the rock elemental approached me, I grabbed it with a tendril. It tried to squirm, but in its reduced state and with so little mana, it couldn't resist. I tried eating some of its rock, but it didn't count towards unlocking its profile. Like slimes, it appeared I needed to eat the crystal core. However, I would not eat this one, as I still hadn't solved my issue of killing it without damaging the core. I planned to absorb the next rock elemental I found right from the start, so I wanted to use this one to meet my harvesting goals.

I kept dissolving away at its rock, although the first to give out was its mana, and the rock encasing it crumbled away into loose debris. With the help of [Dissection], I isolated the valuable crystal core and cleaned off all traces of rock until only a beautiful crystal remained. It looked like a clustered star and was colored like brown-stained glass.

I deposited the crystal and then harvested what I could from the smoldering remains of the numerous spiders taken out in the explosion. While there was little on offer from the spiders beyond a few fangs and tiny scythe blades, I did gain another skill level.

I was surprised it took this long, and I could only blame the undead for their lack of resources, which prevented it from being the first skill to reach six. I checked my quest progress and only had a quarter of the way to go with the spiders, although, at the rate I was killing them, I was sure I'd go above my quota.

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'Especially because I want to try out some afflictions.'

I decided to buy the trait. I had quite a few points remaining, and since it had no levels, I'd likely be unable to earn it for free. Another reason I wanted the trait immediately was in case my next class level gave me a revelation now that I had the trait unlocking new skill options.

While winding through caverns, I accidentally returned where I had started before encountering my first spider. I shook my head and consulted my [Mapping] skill to retrace my steps. There must have been a tunnel I missed somewhere. When I finally found an opening that had partially collapsed and dug through, I suddenly received an update.

When I activated the skill again, a minimap appeared within my vision that showed my immediate surroundings. I could see the tunnel passages, revealing another tunnel that had also partially collapsed.

'Tabitha wasn't joking about this being a critical skill for adventurers. While Simon's dungeon was pretty small, navigating a larger one without something like this would be a nightmare.'

I finally found another spider; it was low-level but enough to test my afflictions. The first one I wanted to try was [Poison Mist]. While the spider tried and failed to bite and poison me, I cast my spell, surrounding it in the strange purple mist.

[Poison Mist] 20%.>

'That description isn't exactly helpful...' I complained.

The longer the spider remained in the poison mist, the higher the percentage ticked up. When it reached one hundred, a duration finally appeared.

When the purple mist started to fade, I recast the spell. As long as the spider was within the mist, the duration did not begin to count down. However, I still wasn't sure what the mist was doing besides that it had vaguely poisoned the spider.

I formed a tendril into a rapier, perfectly copying the one I had eaten from Keaton, and with two quick stabs, injected [Poison Slime] into the spider using paralysis. I watched as the first stab applied seventy percent to the spider, the second reached the maximum, and the spider immediately collapsed and froze.

[Poison Mist] 100%: 4min remaining.

[Paralysis] 100%: 7min remaining.>

In an effort to experiment, I used [Vaporize Slime] on some more paralytic poison slime. It slowly added to the duration that was ticking down. While thinking about what to try next, I was interrupted by a sudden notification.

I was frustrated that it had died, and I assumed [Poison Mist] was the culprit, as I had kept the two wounds to inject paralytic slime minimal. I could only conclude that [Poison Mist] did damage over time, although when I dissected the spider, I couldn't exactly see traces of the poison, unlike my paralysis poison. Its organs looked fine, and other than the two stab wounds, it had no visible damage or harm to it.

'I mean, it is a magic spell. I guess it just does magical poison damage or something.'