Wild Era 2, Ch 3: Prodigy

As Kelin walked toward the second convergence, he could sense the flow of mana in the dungeon changing as it adapted to him.

The Path had taken his measure during the challenge, and now it was adjusting things. The dungeon was full of mana for it to use and the sense of danger in the air intensified.

Notifications began to ring in his mind.

Your strength exceeds the recommended Level range for this dungeon.

Now analyzing your combat abilities.

He felt the Path’s attention sweep through his body, assessing his attributes and the level of his skills.

Physical Attributes and Mental Attributes are within the accepted range. 

Magical Abilities and Skills exceed the average.

Soul Abilities and Soul Affinity greatly exceed the average.

There was a pause as the Path seemed to consider something, but then it continued.

You have been identified as a rising talent with extreme potential.

The purpose of the Path is to foster talent for the galaxy.

Adjusting dungeon parameters to match.

Kelin froze in place as he heard the Path’s voice. 

“Really?” he asked, feeling exasperated as he looked up at the sky. “You’ll acknowledge my skill, but not that I was reborn?”

The Path’s response was a wave of mana that gathered through the sky like a storm cloud. Lightning arced through the interior as thunder boomed out, and then a crash of pressure swept through the area.

The two remaining dungeon nodes he could sense changed as it passed, and their mana signatures became denser and more threatening.

At the same time, an infusion of energy from the Path touched his soul, marking it in a way he wasn’t familiar with.

You have been marked as an Innate Prodigy with a combat strength that exceeds your Level.

Your Effective Level has been adjusted to Level 105. 

From now on, your progress will be evaluated and your effective Level will change based on your accomplishments. 

Dungeon challenges have been remodeled to match your capabilities. Their rewards have also increased to a similar Level, but experience will remain the same. 

Future dungeons will respond to you in the same way.

Kelin stared at the sky. He felt like swearing at the Path, and a few choice ones ran through his mind, but he didn’t want it to suddenly increase the difficulty any more.

He wasn't a prodigy, he was a grouchy archmage stuck in a new body, and the Path was still ignoring it.

But since he couldn't change that, he would apparently have to put up with whatever it was up to.

He was familiar with the Path increasing a dungeon’s difficulty, but he’d never heard of it directly altering dungeons to this extent before.

And marking him as a prodigy…that was also new.

Dungeons existed as a training environment to raise the overall strength of the galaxy. That was their purpose. 

So whatever the Path was doing, it had to be part of that.

If he had to guess about what was going on from a broader perspective...it seemed like the Path might be taking steps of its own to address the lack of Seventh Evolution beings in the galaxy.

Or at least the lack of higher Evolution ones.

Perhaps the Sovereign of Silver Chaos had decided it was time to harness the full capabilities of the Path and start a more aggressive approach to training for the prodigies that had strong potential.

If it worked, it might result in powerful defenders for the galaxy who could turn the tide of the Chaos War. It made him wonder how his death had affected the balance of things. 

He had been a major figure on the battlefield. Perhaps his absence had left too many openings behind, increasing the need for more fighters.

And so this was the result.

Or perhaps that was just his pride talking. 

Either way, the reason for the change was a distant consideration. First, he had to survive whatever changes the Path had stuck in here.

He’d been planning to run this dungeon quickly, but it seemed he wasn’t going to be able to get away with giving less than his full effort, here or anywhere else. 

Not anymore.

There would be no easy dungeon runs.

Even after this, the Prodigy mark meant that no matter what dungeon he entered, the challenges would change to match.

More importantly, the Path had said nothing about this dungeon’s challenges being designed for a solo fight, which meant that they were still meant for a team, just at Level 105 now.

That was 19 levels above him, which would have been tolerable under most conditions, but what mattered was that the monsters would be at the First Evolution.

That meant things might get ugly. 

The First Evolution rebuilt the body with a higher mana density, holistically enhancing everything. The monsters’ attacks, defenses, and soul resistance would all be stronger than before. 

It was lucky that he had gotten most of his abilities to Elite already, so those should be on par with them. He’d already killed several First Evolution enemies so he was confident in handling it, but he might still have to condense his mana with Blaze to be really effective.

And when he won, the experience would still only be the same as if the monsters were Level 82 or 85, or whatever they had been before.

Given how expensive Blaze was at roughly seventeen times the cost for eight times greater density, mana conservation was going to be an issue.

He would have to save it for any Elites that appeared.

He felt irritated, but as he considered the issue, his mood began to change, and eventually a smile tweaked the edge of his lips as he looked up at the sky.

He’d been thinking about how to get his abilities up to Epic, and there was really no better way than to fight over his level against powerful enemies.

Repeatedly.

He’d been planning to do something of the sort in the guild’s training halls, where he’d have to pay for the opportunity, but now it looked like he was going to get it here, in a much more dangerous and target-rich environment.

There was a very real chance of getting injured or dying, but with risk came reward. If the Path was going to give him Level 105 treasure from the challenges, it might be worthwhile.

He just had to survive.

“Alright,” he said eventually. “I can work with that.”

He checked through his spatial items, sorting out the potions and talismans he might need. Then he continued walking, heading for the second convergence.

On the way, he eliminated the few regular monsters that were left in the dungeon, aiming for a perfect clear, and then focused his attention on Blaze.

The ability was part of his Soulfire Physique, a way of channeling its energy through the Ignite and Blaze runes that he’d learned from the Compendium of Soulfire Runes.

Until now, he’d been using it at maximum strength for a very limited number of spells, which had let him face some First Evolution enemies, but he had mostly dealt with one at a time. 

Since he might have to face a larger number, he was debating if he could modify how Blaze worked.

If he could cut its strength in half for four times greater mana density, or to a quarter for double the mana density, it would be more efficient and he could tailor the amount of mana he needed to use.

First Evolution mana was about three to five times as dense as Basic Evolution mana, so he might not be able to reduce the power too much, but half strength might be good.

It was something to think about, so he worked on it as he walked through the dungeon, letting that and other plans spiral through his mind.

It took him about an hour to get to the second convergence.

When he found it, it was inside of a clearing in the forest, but it was markedly different from the first challenge.

This one was a bright crystal archway on an island that was surrounded by a clear pond. A ring of crystal pillars marched around the pool. Each of them was six feet tall and radiated a strong sense of Water elemental essence, as did the archway itself.

Kelin scanned the area to make sure, but it looked like the necrotic energy from the rest of the dungeon hadn’t reached this place. The mist in the forest was filled with it, but it hadn’t entered here. The ring of pillars seemed to be providing some defense.

As he stepped into the clearing, the voice of the Path rang in his mind.

You have discovered a Unique Challenge in this dungeon.

The Island of Mist.

The difficulty of this Challenge has been adjusted to match your estimated strength.

Level: 105.

Enter if you dare.

A thin veil of blue light stretched between the pillars and marked the border. There was a strange quality to the light that made it look ethereal and dangerous, while the archway shone even more brightly with the same energy.

Kelin formed a Soulfire Bolt and a soul arrow and let them float near his right hand. Then he pulled out a couple of Soulfire Bolt talismans from his spatial ring and held them in his left hand.

As he walked forward, Blaze simmered in his meridians, ready to ignite his mana and soul pools.

When he crossed through the ring of pillars, the world shifted around him. A twist of spatial energy enveloped him and he disappeared. Then his view changed as he found himself standing somewhere else.

The archway in front of him had turned into an ornate crystalline temple with Water energy flowing through the walls and roof. It was a dozen times larger and towered a hundred feet into the air.

The island below it had expanded to match, with white crystal sands stretching out to meet the ocean waves, and the ring of pillars now stood like monoliths around the shore, each of them fifty feet high and ten feet wide at the base.

Kelin was located on the beach, looking toward the temple, which was only a few hundred feet away.

This was like a dungeon inside a dungeon, and it was rare to see something like it at this level. He had a feeling that if the challenge had been at Level 82 or so, it would have taken place in the forest instead.

The Path’s voice echoed in his mind.

You have entered the Island of Mist.

This island is a remnant from the Sea of a Thousand Isles. Its people worshipped the sun and the ocean, and were once known for their mastery of elemental Water and Fire, but they fell to the legions of undead that destroyed all life on their home world. 

Defend the temple from invasion.

Should you succeed, you will have an opportunity to enter the temple and to study the magic left behind, perhaps even to inherit one of their arts.

Should you fail, you will join them in death.

Then the voice disappeared, leaving Kelin to figure out the rest. He quickly scanned the area and then ran toward the temple.

There was a large archway with double doors at the front, which were closed, but it would be as good a place as any to fight if he had to defend it.

As soon as he got there, he drew a ward circle and took out his Soulfire Sigil, which was still ignited from earlier, and hung it in the air over his shoulder. 

Then he looked around for enemies.

The sea shore was already beginning to boil. Dark tentacles lashed up from the waves and struck the sand, followed by a half a dozen skeletons and other undead. 

Their dark bones looked like seaweed tossed by the waves as they came ashore, but then they rose to their feet. Their attention locked onto the temple instantly and a wave of dark energy swept over the beach. 

Then they began to run toward him.

Kelin analyzed them as they approached.

Deathrot Skeleton. Level 102.

Deathrot Warrior. Level 105.

Deathwish Skeletal Mage. Level 103.

There were three of the Deathrot Skeletons, two warriors, and two mages. Behind them, there were two more stronger undead.

Deathblaze Arcanist. Level 107.

Deathflame Knight. Level 108.

The arcanist looked like a stronger version of the mages and it was surrounded by a field of crackling blue and black lightning, while the knight was dressed in dark full plate armor and held a massive two-handed sword.

They were all from the same line of undead, just different versions, and there was no Elite among them, so this was probably just the first wave.

Back in the water where they’d come from, the dark tentacles belonged to a Level 150 undead Deep Sea Kraken. It didn’t look like it was going to come ashore, and it also meant that Kelin wasn’t going anywhere near the beach.

Kelin intensified the Soulfire Bolt in his hand and hurled it at one of the weaker skeletons. Then he threw the soul arrow at a mage. That one, he didn’t bother to intensify, since he wanted a baseline.

The Soulfire Bolt seared through the air like a golden lance and struck the skeleton on the head. Shards of bone flew away from the impact point and the skeleton’s head rocked backward, but the only result was a charred area on the dark bone and a shard of bone that flew away.

He was expecting it, but he still frowned when he saw how little it did. 

Even intensified to triple the cost and with the 47.5% enhancement to Soulfire power he had currently, it would take half a dozen or more of those to break the skeleton’s skull.

The difference the First Evolution made was too large, even at triple the mana cost. He’d have to use Blaze before that spell did much, but that was out of the question with this many monsters unless an Elite appeared.

The soul arrow did better. 

It was a rainbow light as it disappeared into the Deathwish mage’s soul, where it flared to life. Ethereal flames filled the creature’s spirit, warring against the necrotic energy that animated it.

Wisps of dark energy were incinerated and fueled the arrow’s flames, which began to expand, but it wasn’t a complete success. The rainbow flames flared up and shrank back again under the pressure of the mage’s soul.

Kelin frowned as he calculated the effect.

The soul of an early First Evolution was more powerful than a Basic Evolution soul, but his own was even stronger. 

The twenty-level difference was tolerable. 

He would just have to double the soul energy and it would take the spell a little while to work.

If he intensified the soul arrows to triple strength, it would be about the same as using them on a Level 90 monster, and they would die almost instantly, but he could only manage twenty-five of those before his soul pool was tapped out.

But that didn’t mean he was limited to just those or Wildfire. He still had some other resources to call on. Even as he decided on a plan, he was already shaping two new soul arrows that were much stronger than before. 

He threw them at the Arcanist and the Knight.

A blaze of rainbow flames blasted through their skeletal forms and sank into their souls, where they leapt outward. The skeletons staggered as rainbow flames began to rise through their bodies, devouring the necrotic energy around them.

By that point, the group was beginning to close the distance, but as they approached, the ground beneath their feet shifted.

A wave of stone spikes erupted from below and hurled the skeletons backward. Each spike was six feet long and half a foot wide and they looked like stalagmites rising from the sand. 

The skeletons went flying away and crashed back onto the sand. Stone spikes were stabbed through their ribs and some of their bones were chipped from the impact. 

The level difference meant they weren’t harmed too much, but Gaius didn’t stop there. 

Stone rose up where the skeletons fell, swiftly covering their legs, arms, and anything touching the earth. 

They struggled, their dark claws tearing gouges into the stone and sending fragments flying in every direction as they tried to break free, but Gaius continually replaced what was lost.

With the two strongest skeletons occupied by the soul arrows, the rest didn’t have the momentum to break free, and within moments the entire group was trapped in stone bonds.

Kelin took advantage of the opening and hurled a sphere of golden flames at the group.

The Soulfire Inferno exploded around them, covering all of the undead, and he kept the channel open as he fueled it with more mana.

Gaius’s stone thinned out into loops to help, revealing many gaps where the flames could reach, and the inferno slowly charred the skeletons, making their bones turning dark. Their necrotic energy burned away as they tried to defend themselves.

Soulfire Bolts were too weak to break through their defenses, but the advantage of an inferno was time. The principles of the Ignite and Blaze soulfire runes radiated through the flames, making them hotter and brighter.

It was also the only reason the inferno worked. The higher principles in those runes burned brightly enough to overcome the mana density. It was just slow, so it would take a while to kill them.

He had until the next wave arrived, and if it was linked to the deaths of these nine, he planned to draw it out for as long as possible. Except for Wildfire, this was the most efficient method he had.

While he waited, he sat down to meditate. His sigil was boosting his recovery, so every second helped. 

Gaius was also critical to this method, since the weight of a mountain didn’t care about mana density. 

The stone he controlled was full of Earth mana, which isolated the mages and kept them from casting spells outside of their bodies.

They were struggling, but necrotic energy was mostly good for killing living things. Elementals didn’t count, so their efforts were ineffective.

The skeletons he’d hit with soul arrows died quickly, but it took ten minutes of channeling the inferno before the next one shattered in the flames. Its bones cracked and an eruption of necrotic energy exploded through the inferno, warring with the soulfire in a final effort.

Another one followed, and then a third, and the wave of dark energy from the explosions was like a murky swamp that nearly extinguished the inferno. 

As more explosions followed, he had to flood the flames with mana to keep them from guttering out and his mana dropped to 80%.

The instant the last skeleton died, the waves near the shore surged with bones as a second wave of undead rose up. Their limbs scrabbled on the sand as they sought for purchase.

This time, there were ten smaller ones, as well as a Deathblaze Arcanist at Level 107 and two Deathflame Knights at Level 108. As soon as they climbed to their feet, they charged toward the temple.

Kelin intensified three soul arrows in a row and sent them at the stronger trio, and then Gaius surged up from the ground like an avalanche, sending a wave of stone and sand to bury the remaining skeletons.

As soon as they were locked in place, Kelin created a new inferno and repeated the same tactic, except this time he intensified it to triple strength. The flames erupted with a fury like a golden sun had been born on the sands.

He focused his attention on his Persistent Spell ability and the mana weave, trying to make the flames as long-lasting and powerful as possible. 

It was faster than before, but he was only five minutes into the process when he sensed another wave of undead rising from the waves. 

It was half the time he’d had between the previous wave, and most of those weren’t even dead yet.

The challenge was speeding up.

There were fifteen in this group, with two Deathblaze Arcanists and two Deathflame Knights.

He frowned as he looked over at them, and then he quickly split his attention, keeping the channel to the inferno open while he intensified new soul arrows.

One arrow after another flared across the sands, striking the arcanists and then the knights, but the rest of the skeletons charged toward the temple, swiftly running around the inferno and the ones that were still trapped.

Gaius couldn’t stop them completely, since his hands were full with the previous batch, but he did send a few stone spikes out to harass them as they ran past. 

Kelin hurled a couple of Soulfire Bolt talismans at the skeletons, but he wasn’t surprised when they only left scorched marks on their bones. The mana they contained wasn’t strong enough to do any more.

Instead, he shaped two normal soul arrows and hurled them at the pair of Deathwish Skeletal Mages in the group. The rest were Deathrot Warriors and Skeletons.

The two mages staggered as the rainbow flames began to take hold, but they continued to run. A wave of dark flames spread from their hands, sweeping toward Kelin and crashing into his ward in an explosion of cold fury.

An instant later, the remaining skeletons arrived and all nine of them slammed into his ward. The regular skeletons had long bone claws that tore at the barrier, while the Deathrot Warriors had dark bone swords that looked like they’d been shaped from a leg bone and sharpened. Their weapons howled with cold blue and black light.

Kelin raised his hand and a powerful pulse of soul energy swept outwards, slamming into the group. The blue flames in their eyes went dark as they froze in place, momentarily stunned by the Soul Paralysis.

A wave of soulfire slammed into them, hurling them backward. 

At the same moment, Gaius diverted part of his attention and hands of stone swept through the air, grabbing the skeletons. He smashed them into the earth next to the ones that were already trapped in the inferno, and bands of stone looped over them, sealing them into place.

Kelin’s mana was down to about 40%, and his soul energy was just above half, so he renewed the mana in the inferno and sat back down to meditate.

He could feel Gaius’s strain as he held all of the skeletons, but the elemental was managing. Once they were trapped in place, it was easier for him.

Two and a half minutes later, however, another wave of undead leapt out of the waves and onto the shore. 

It was twice as fast as the last one.

There were fifteen of them again with two arcanists and two knights.

He glanced at the inferno, where twenty-one skeletons were still roasting. Even intensified, Soulfire Inferno was only at the Advanced tier, so it was taking a while.

With this wave, there were 36 skeletons on the island. The sheer amount of necrotic energy radiating from them was creating a black cloud that turned the area dark and brought a sense of desolation to the beach.

It was more than Gaius could contain, and Kelin would run out of soul energy before he killed the new ones. 

Then they would eventually break through his ward, even if he dropped an inferno around it. Both for his own sake and because the challenge required him to defend the temple, he couldn’t give them the chance.

“Time to change tactics,” he said as he stood up. 

A sphere of rainbow flames formed in his hand, flickering with red and yellow sparks, and he hurled it at the skeletons in the inferno.

Wildfire exploded across their ranks, blazing with fury as it sank into their souls and began to devour the necrotic energy. Flickers of rainbow light erupted in every direction, weaving through the stone lattice, and wisps of smoke began to rise.

The skeletons that had just crawled onto the beach raced forward, swerving to the sides to avoid the inferno, but as they regrouped and ran toward his ward, Kelin created another sphere of Wildfire and hurled it in front of them.

Rainbow flames exploded across their ranks, making them stagger.

His mana was down to 25%, so as they began to attack the barrier, he grabbed an intermediate mana potion out of his spatial ring and drank it.

Bolts of black lightning, crackling blue flames, and bone swords and claws tore at the ward, sending up explosions of soulfire, and his mana pool dropped like a rock, losing a few points with every hit.

His ward was at the Elite tier, but the mana density in their blows meant that each hit took three to four times more mana to resist, even with all of the defensive advantages of his class and the Soulfire Sigil.

He didn’t have to endure it for long. 

The Wildfire flaring through the souls of the ones in the inferno rose higher and the skeletons began to shake. Wisps of ethereal smoke drifted away from their bones and skulls.

It was the fastest among the old ones, since they were exhausted, and it only took a few moments before one exploded. 

A column of Wildfire erupted twenty feet into the air at the same time as a ring of flames blasted outward, washing across the rest of the trapped skeletons. 

As soon as it hit them, the flames tripled in intensity and more explosions followed, sending column after column of rainbow flames soaring into the sky.

It took three mana per monster to expand Wildfire, but the rest of the energy came from the monsters’ souls as they burned. 

The explosions merged together and turned into a storm of Wildfire expanding outward. Then it swept toward the skeletons around Kelin, drowning them in an ocean of flames.

Their resistance didn’t last for long and they began to explode into flames too, sending soulshaking eruptions through the area.

For all of the power of the blasts, they were all on the level of the soul and mana. They barely stirred the wind over the island, but the cloud of necrotic energy covering everything was torn to pieces and devoured in the flames.

Kelin strengthened his ward as he channeled the Wildfire, sweeping it across the field. By the time the last skeleton died, it was a towering hurricane a hundred feet tall and three hundred feet wide.

The backlash was already flooding into his soul and he channeled it through the wards there, letting it turn into pure soul strength.

Thirty seconds later, every skeleton on the island was dead. Even the kraken in the ocean had retreated, unwilling to face the flames above the waves.

Kelin’s mana was under 20%, so he grabbed another mana potion out of his ring and drank it, sending it back to 35%. Then he sat down and tried to meditate, trying to squeeze out even a few extra points of recovery.

The island was still, but there were no final notifications for the challenge yet, which meant it was the quiet before a storm.

As if the thought had summoned it, at that moment a chill wind began to whip across the ocean, stirring a section of waves offshore into a spiral. 

The area quickly bent downward, turning into a whirlpool that felt like it was stretching away into the distance. 

From his position, Kelin couldn’t see where it went, but he could sense the spatial and necrotic energy twisting together, as well as an intense amount of ice, which was forming frozen crystals along the surface of the waves.

Within seconds, the sea in that area was a crackling sheet of dark ice that was spinning around the whirlpool. Its surface constantly surged and broke under the force of the motion, making it look like a nightmare of frozen shards.

A dark skeletal figure rose up from the ocean, trailing a cloak of ice shards. 

It was eight feet tall and its bones gleamed with the shimmering black light of condensed necrotic mana. There was an ornate silver circlet on its head and matching bracers on its arms, and the aura it radiated was much stronger than any of the skeletons Kelin had seen so far.

Deathfrost Lich. Level 110. Elite.

Deathfrost Liches are some of the most notable officers of the Deathborn Legion, one of the five great factions among the undead horde. With their high Intelligence and powerful spirits, they serve as commanders on the battlefield, commanding lesser troops to gain the greatest advantage. 

In the invasion that destroyed the Sea of a Thousand Isles, these liches numbered in the tens of thousands. Beyond their powerful magic, their most notable ability is their chilling aura, which freezes the world around them and drains the vitality from it.

Their steps froze the ocean and shattered the land, and new undead rose in their wake.

The voice of the Path rang in Kelin’s mind at the same time.

The difficulty of the final stage of this challenge has been raised to match your demonstrated ability. Your Effective Level rating has increased to 110.

Survive, if you can.