Wild Era, Ch 18: Ruins of Empire

The trees pulsed with mana as Kelin walked deeper into the forest, searching for more enemies and signs of the Hesen encampment. 

Now that he’d started killing things, he could feel the mood of the dungeon shifting. It felt more dangerous. 

Dungeons existed to challenge trial takers and it was targeting him now. The monsters would be pushed toward him soon, first in groups and then in waves. He planned to deal with things on his terms as much as possible, since if his mana ran out, he’d be a sitting duck.

It wasn’t long before he encountered another group of three Hesen scouts and an archer. They were running through the forest as they exchanged hisses, searching for something, probably him.

A pair of soul arrows and then a pair of soulfire bolts took them out. He collected the cores and moved on, heading in the direction they’d come from.

He encountered several more roaming packs of Hesen, but the groups were similar to that one, just scouts and archers. The mage and berserker group must have been dispatched purposefully to deal with the treant and bear. 

He took the opportunity to practice with his spells, using pure mana bolts, fire bolts, earth spikes, and various wards as he fought them. Where he could, he worked in an explosive sigil so that it wouldn’t be left out.

He even had Gaius trap a couple of the archers and he let them shoot at his mana shield as he worked to improve its mana structure and make it denser and more efficient.

Eliminating those groups was enough to give him another level, bringing him to 37. He added the free points to Aura, collected the cores, and moved on.

Deeper in the forest, strange stone pylons and ruins began to appear among the trees. They had ornate carvings, half broken runes, and what might have once been enchantments. 

Some of the stones were jagged and ferocious in appearance, carved in the shape of warriors with raised weapons or powerful spirits. The taller ones looked like they had been stabbed into the ground like spears, but they were tilted at strange angles.

He wasn’t familiar with the exact style, but dungeons were often filled with remnants of lost civilizations and other fragments that had come through the chaos gates. These could be from this galaxy or another one. 

If the enchantments on the stones had been more intact, it would have been worthwhile to study them, but they were badly damaged and he was just here for experience.

After that, he began to run into more groups of Hesen, including some that were in fortified guard posts. In a few places, they had taken over the stone ruins and turned them into a defensive area, adding new walls and wooden stakes to bridge the broken gaps.

Gaius tore apart the earth beneath the ruins and pulled the walls down, leaving the Hesen exposed, and Kelin destroyed everything inside.

There was another Hesen warrior and a berserker in one of the outposts, which helped him to reach Level 38. He added the five free points to Intelligence, bringing it to 342, and moved on.

Before long, the ruins began to appear more frequently and in somewhat better shape, with larger buildings and more ornate statues. 

Then a stone road sprang up from the forest floor, cutting through the trees. Its paving stones were uneven and covered with cracks, but it ran in the same direction he was headed. 

Kelin looked at the road dubiously, scanning it for traps and enchantments, but he didn’t sense any overt mana in the stones. Gaius scanned the substructure and approved it as well, confirming that there were no pits or strange things below.

It was just a road.

It looked like there was an entire city of some type merged in with the forest, perhaps more scattered than they had been in their original form. The buildings and this road had all been part of it once.

The underbrush to the sides was thick, so Kelin decided to follow the road. If there was a city farther on, that was probably where the main Hesen tribe was.

The monster forces became denser as he moved on, and the next few groups he ran across had a Hesen warrior along with the scouts and archers.

Hesen Warrior. Level 50.

The warrior had a shield and spear, the same as the last ones Kelin had seen.

For the sake of training, he killed the archers and scouts quickly and then let the warrior close in on him, while Gaius kept a close eye on things. 

The lizardkin was muscular and agile, much faster on his feet than Kelin, and up close his presence was dangerous. His spear struck out like a serpent as it stabbed into Kelin’s mana shield. 

Kelin held his ground and poured mana into reinforcing the shield, but cracks of glowing yellow light ran down the surface. The strike echoed like a sledgehammer striking stone in his mind.

The impact came again as the lizard continued to attack, sending more cracks through his shield. 

It had already cost him 30 mana, 15 for each attack, and the shield was beginning to collapse. It would have been more efficient, but the ability was only at the Basic tier.

That was why he was doing this.

The warrior hissed at him in rage as it saw its attack blocked. It bared its fangs and its shield came around from the side. The edge slammed into Kelin’s mana shield, creating more cracks, and the warrior stepped in closer, stabbing with its full body weight behind the spear.

This time a yellow aura of a stamina-based skill surrounded the spear.

The spear tore through the mana shield and stabbed toward Kelin’s chest.

Kelin’s hand was already there, creating a smaller and denser mana shield that blocked the blow, and he stepped to the side to get his balance back.

His mana shield reformed around him as he continued infusing mana into it. It felt like holding up a heavy weight at arm’s length, swiftly draining his energy.

The lizard hissed as it advanced on him again. Its spear continued to glow with the same yellow light of its ability.

Stamina was to warriors what mana was to mages. They had a stamina pool to draw on for their class abilities instead. It was a mix of their Strength and Constitution attributes. 

They usually had small mana pools too, something that was natural to everyone, which they could use to power enchantments or artifacts.

Kelin technically had stamina as well, but he had no abilities for it as a mage. It was simply a passive effect that helped to improve his endurance. 

Up to now, the Hesen hadn’t had much of a chance to show off their abilities, but since he was giving this one the space to try, it began to demonstrate why the dungeon was dangerous.

The impacts on his shield came like hammer blows, two a second, and his mana was dropping swiftly.

That wasn’t all the warrior was capable of, as it began to show off the other traits that the Hesen were known for. A wave of yellow earth essence surrounded the warrior and then the earth at Kelin’s feet rippled.

Earthen spikes were supposed to shoot up to impale him from below, but a moment later the Hesen snarled in confusion as nothing happened.

Kelin just chuckled.

The warrior had no chance of seizing control over the earth from Gaius, especially not so close to the soul chamber.

The Hesen snarled again as it gave up on trying to summon the spikes and refocused its effort on breaking through Kelin’s shield. It was offended now and the blows came faster, raining down like lightning strikes. 

Crackling bursts of mana exploded from the barrier as the spear shattered one part of it after another.

When his mana dropped to 50%, Kelin decided it was good enough.

Hidden behind his mana shield, an explosive sigil formed in his hand and he tossed it on the ground. Then he stepped back, moving with one of the lizard’s blows.

The Hesen chased him, leaping forward directly onto the rune. Soulfire exploded upward in a pillar three feet across, almost obscuring the warrior’s entire body. 

It tried to hurl itself backward, but it was too late to escape.

A soulfire bolt blasted through its head and finished it off.

Kelin walked off to the side of the road and sat down to meditate while keeping an eye on his surroundings. A notification from the Path was waiting for him as well.

Congratulations, Lord of Wildfire.

You have gained a Level. 

You are now Level 39.

Your Ability: Mana Shield has reached the Advanced tier.

The mana density, shield duration, and efficiency are increased by 20%. 

From stressing your capabilities in battle, you have gained 1 Intelligence and 1 Agility.

He summoned another mana shield around him as he sat there, studying the improvements. The weave of the shield was denser and he could feel more solidity in it.

He dismissed the rest of the notifications and added the free points to Intelligence, which took it up to 351.

One more level and he could choose a new ability for his class and subclass, as well as upgrade one ability in each.

He camouflaged the mana shield again to hide himself from prying eyes, and then he focused on Gaius’s senses as he let his mana recover.

He was pleased with how this dungeon was going, but there was a lot more to train. The fight with the Hesen had been the best since the mage and treant group earlier.

If he kept killing everything with soulfire, that was all that would improve, and then when it came time to tier up at 40, 60, and 80, he wouldn’t be able to take advantage of the free ability upgrades as well.

Ideally, those should be pushing the boundaries for each tier, or even higher.

The Advanced tier was considered standard for abilities at Level 40, while Expert was for Level 60, Elite was for Level 80, and Epic was theoretically at Level 100 or higher.

In reality, few people reached Epic without taking much longer, unless it was earned as a tier or quest reward. 

He was almost Level 40 now, but he only had Soulfire Bolt, Soulfire Sigil, and Mana Shield at Advanced. 

Elemental Ward, Explosive Sigil, and Soulfire Body Refinement were still Basic.

If not for his old familiarity with mana and soul energy, he would be at a significant disadvantage fighting in this dungeon against higher-level enemies.

He rubbed his chin as he considered his leveling plan.

He could continue leveling here, but he would have to separate off some more Hesen and deal with them like that warrior, and he would also have to use the guild’s training rooms when got back, even if they were expensive. 

Either that, or do something even more extreme.

Otherwise, he would reach Level 100 with barely any abilities at a reasonable level.

While it was possible to train them up later, it was slower and would take longer than doing it now.

He was able to manually improve his abilities, making them rise in tier faster than they would otherwise, since he knew what they were supposed to do at higher levels, but there were natural limits.

His body had to adjust, his meridians had to strengthen, and his mana had to increase in density and cycling speed. Those were things that the Path could accelerate by physically adjusting his body during a tier up.

He didn’t want to lose the chance to do it as efficiently as possible.

It would also be for the best if he had some abilities at tiers above the standard range, which meant Expert or even Elite while he was still at Level 40 or 50.

Epic would be ideal, but that was a pipe dream for now. It would take a significant quest reward on top of several tier ups to achieve it.

He wasn’t going to give up the experience in this dungeon and head back just to train. He needed levels as well, so that he could deal with the Wind Hunters and protect himself and the kids.

He would have to do what he could and make up for any remaining deficits with the guild training halls. The monster cores he was collecting should be enough to use them for a while.

When his mana was full, he stood up and continued down the road. 

He found another group of Hesen and did the same thing again, but in an even more extreme way, letting them attack him in as controlled of a situation as he could manage.

Arrows battered his mana shield, while the warrior and the scouts surrounded him on every side and attacked with their spears.

At six hits a second, his mana shield before the upgrade would have lasted about four seconds, or perhaps a touch longer since the scouts didn’t hit as hard as the warrior.

The new improvements to his mana shield’s durability, density, and efficiency were 20% each, but they compounded on top of each other, creating an almost 73% improvement over what he’d had before. Then he further strengthened the shield manually to double the improvement.

Eight seconds wasn’t a lot, but it was enough for a good mage to do a lot, even if he were surprised at close quarters. 

Not that he would let it go that long if this weren’t training.

He fought to keep his mana stable under the disruption of the stamina-fueled blows and the multiple strikes, working to pull the shield back together as it broke down.

It was good training for the ability.

When his mana dropped to 50%, he had Gaius trap the archers and then he used an explosive sigil and soulfire bolts to wipe out the warrior and scouts.

He left the two archers trapped in stone and then he began to alter the structure of his mana shield, redesigning parts of it while it was recovering from the battering.

This was the ideal time. 

The core abilities for a mage class were fairly simple, but over time a mage learned how to improve them.

To get the shield to Advanced, he’d made it denser, which was the most basic foundation for a shield, but there were other principles to good shielding, from proper grounding, to mana circulation, geometric reinforcement, and more.

The most useful was to infuse the shield with the energy of a higher law. 

He couldn’t do that directly, but now that the shield was a bit stronger he could work on infusing it with soulfire.

Threads of fiery golden light fused into the shield and spread across the barrier, making it look like a molten sun. 

He manually wove the energy through the structure, and within a minute or so, it was done. 

The entire shield glowed with fiery light.

A notification from the Path rang in his mind.

Your Ability: Mana Shield (Advanced) has incorporated a new affinity for soulfire.

It has been upgraded to Soulfire Shield (Advanced).

You may use either version.

Kelin nodded as he felt the changes settle into the ability.

Of his basic abilities, mana shield had been the only one that didn’t rely on soulfire or incorporate it in some way after he specialized his class.

Now it did.

It would get the 25% bonus to soulfire from his class, as well as half of the bonus from the Ring of Everlasting Flame, which was another 12.5%.

The shield would have benefited from the full effect of the ring if he’d used pure Fire as the affinity, but soulfire was a better choice. 

It had protective properties and was a more defensive element. It would help to ward off soul attacks, purify negative energies like curses, and have better synergy with his class as he advanced.

When he was ready, he turned to the two archers that were still alive and had Gaius release them. 

The Hesen hissed in anger and began backing away as they fired more arrows at him. The arrows struck his mana shield and ricocheted away with their points charred, leaving a thin trail of smoke behind in the air.

Before, the arrows had taken about five mana per hit, but now it had dropped to three. The overall defense had improved as well.

“Better,” he agreed. 

He flicked two soul arrows at the archers to finish them off and then he headed to the side of the road, where he let the soulfire fade from his mana shield. 

He camouflaged himself and began to meditate as he considered other ways to optimize his current abilities.

The next step to improve his mana shield would be to add stable rune forms to it, ones that were naturally embedded in the essence of the shield whenever it appeared, but that meant revising the inherent structure of the ability and ensuring that the runes worked well with soulfire. 

He would have to work on that in isolation, probably for a few days, but it could wait until he got back to Highmist.

He was planning to continue on his way and find more Hesen, but halfway through his meditation, he was interrupted by a warning from Gaius that several beings were approaching along the road.

Kelin frowned as he looked in that direction. 

They were coming along the same path he had, from the edge of the forest rather than from the Hesen camp, and Gaius’s senses told him they weren’t Hesen or monsters.

Instead, it was two or three humans, a sylph, and a dwarf.

The impression was a bit confusing, since one of the humans was dead or almost dead and being carried by another, while the last human seemed to be chasing the rest of them.

That was a little strange.

“Adventurers then,” he decided, speaking aloud. “And possibly an enemy chasing them, unless they had a falling out among their team.”

They must have entered the dungeon a little after him. 

If they’d been here before, he would have noticed the disturbance in the local mana. His own presence had stirred things up enough that adding a few more didn’t have the same effect.

He’d chosen this dungeon partly because it wasn’t well known, but there had always been a chance of running into someone else here. Only higher level dungeons had separate dimension realms for each team, and not all of them. 

Encountering someone else in a dungeon usually followed basic rules of precedence, and the guild enforced that, so it rarely resulted in conflict.

That was why this group was strange. 

Maybe there was a traitor on their team or someone had chased them into the dungeon. Either way, it didn’t bode well for their continued survival.

In about seven seconds, he would have to decide what to do about it. That was annoying, since he’d been enjoying his solo training.

He could already see them approaching down the road. Their clothing confirmed they were adventurers and they were sprinting straight toward him.

His mana was a bit over 75%, which would have to be good enough. He stood up and reinforced his mana shield, channeled mana into his bracers, and waited while maintaining his camouflage.

The sylph was in the lead, with another human and the dwarf pounding at the paving stones just behind her. The human was carrying a woman over his shoulder as he ran, supporting her regardless of the cost.

Behind them, the final human was chasing them.

Since he needed to know what was going on, Kelin threw caution to the wind and analyzed all of them. Given the situation, they might not even notice.

Serai. Winter Sylph. Level 48. Wind of the Falling Snow-Winter Mage.

That was the sylph in the lead. Behind her was the human man and the dwarf.

Maro Toren. Human. Level 54. Fire Berserker-Stalwart Smith.

Galin Shieldmount. Mountain Dwarf. Level 52. Mountain Axe-Shield Wall.

The one called Maro was carrying the human woman, but as Kelin analyzed her, he saw that the hope for her recovery had already passed.

Sarella Wistern. Human. Level 47. Deceased. Wind Healer-Graceful Hand. 

She must have died only moments ago.

The final human who was chasing them was last.

Herath Oresta. Human. Level 62. Silent Assassin-Darkwind Walker.

With that one, Kelin’s analysis almost missed the man’s real classes, since they were veiled, but a pulse of soul magic cleared the view and revealed what he actually was, as well as his real level. 

The classes that other people saw just described him as a Level 50 Wind-affinity rogue. 

So, it was some type of planned attack then.

No one got the assassin class randomly. It had to be carefully planned for and selected. That meant this was not an accident.

A deeper analysis on the assassin in the second that Kelin had left showed one final thing.

Origin: Sarathian Empire.

Well, that was interesting.

Sarathians didn’t come into the Celadon States much. They almost always stayed inside their own borders unless they were attacking.

That one was here now, attacking adventurers in a Celadon dungeon...it gave him the feeling that this was connected to the war between Baralis and Sarathia somehow.

But figuring that out would have to wait.

The question right now was what he was going to do about it.