B5 C45: Lessons in Pain

“Pathetic!” With a roar of disapproval, Cezerra lashed out, her fist closing in on a small tear in space hanging by her head. The moment her

“Pathetic!” With a roar of disapproval, Cezerra lashed out, her fist closing in on a small tear in space hanging by her head. The moment her strike connected, the portal shattered and dissipated, dealing a costly blow to my mana reserves.

What was worse was that she was right. It was pathetic. While I’d chosen Portal primarily for faster travel times, I’d also hoped it would work well in a combat and scouting capacity. I was quickly discovering that I’d been a bit too optimistic on that front.

Normally, I would have already discovered that long ago, but I’d picked the spell up right when Verin lost her ring. Half the time I was using it, I was trying to cut down on my time outside the house, grabbing food as quickly as possible so as not to leave Verin by herself. The other half, I used it domestically, grabbing ingredients from the other side of the kitchen or crafting tools from the walls of my workshop.

All of those experiences had failed to prepare me for just how finicky the spell was in actual combat. For one, the portal destabilized if too much mana passed through it. On my side of the equation, this meant that I couldn’t use the portal to ensure a supercharged arrow hit its mark. What I hadn’t considered as much was the other point of failure, which Cezerra was happy to demonstrate for me.

Against an intelligent opponent, a single mana-fueled punch was enough to break the portal entirely. With the extra levels I’d gained in Portal since learning it, coupled with my higher Wisdom, the spell no longer took a full third of my mana, but it still took a fourth. With a single punch, my opponent had wasted a full quarter of my reserves.

Not completely useless, though. The timing was tricky, but I summoned another portal by Cezerra’s leg right as she was mid-step. Like a viper, my arm shot out, snagging her leg and giving the demon a firm shove. With her weight, it took a good deal of my Strength to move her at all, but the abrupt force managed to partially destabilize her, and she stumbled.

“Better!” The boss shouted even as she flailed about, but I wasn’t done. Nocking a plain, uncharged arrow to my bow, I drew back and summoned one more portal right in front of the demon’s eyes. I shot as soon as the spell finished, but even then, it somehow wasn’t fast enough. Annoyingly enough, the spell took a second to fully form, giving Cezerra all the time she needed to sense it coming. With one firm headbutt, she tore the portal apart even as she fell to the ground.

I’d like to say that I made a tactical retreat, regained my mana, and slowly wore her down, but the truth was the exact opposite. With three fourths of my mana down the drain, I was easy pickings, and the fight ended less than a minute later.

If there was one silver lining, Cezerra was making me brawl her multiple times a day now, which meant she couldn’t afford to break all my bones. Instead, I got away with only minor fractures and nasty bruises.

I couldn’t say that I was truly enjoying this change of pace, but the levels spoke for themselves. Apparently, the system rewarded me heavily for battling against a dungeon boss over ten levels above me.

Mental Spike has reached level 12!

Mental Magic has reached level 25!

Hammers has reached level 24!

Swords has reached level 12!

Having hit the Initiate rank, Mental Spike got an augment that increased disorientation. The effect wasn’t huge, but it definitely helped to foul Cezerra’s aim once in a while.

Spatial Magic, ostensibly the entire point of the brutal training, was leveling more slowly, but for good reason. Eventually, we pushed through to the next level, but an unpleasant notification reminded me of the trade off I’d made a while back.

Spatial Magic has reached level 38!

Your spatial affinity tonic has worn off. Your leveling speed has returned to the standard baseline.

The tonic had been a stellar reward for clearing the spatial region, but it had only promised me ten levels of accelerated growth. As I’d taken it back when I was at level 28, it looked like my era of comparatively easy gains was over.

And perhaps it would have taken months to get those last two levels if not for one extra feature of Cezerra’s mad training plan. While she was fine holding back to keep me in fighting shape, that didn’t apply when it came to the drudge rituals. After a few days of fighting, she’d inevitably force me to retry the ritual. Expectedly, it went exactly like the first time, complete with the horrible backlash.

At the very least, I managed to grab a new skill out of it, though I would have rather not needed it in the first place.

You have learned a new skill: Backlash Resistance

Decreases the negative consequences of miscasting a spell or having a spell interrupted. Increases the resilience and regenerative properties of your mana core.

If not great for my health, flexing my entire spatial prowess against a pocket dimension’s barrier was great for my magic, and the penultimate level arrived far faster than I would have imagined.

Spatial Magic has reached level 39!

At some point along the way, I realized I’d lost my chance to downplay some of my skills to Cezerra, including my ability to handle my own hunger and thirst. Naturally, that was fine now that Cal had a plan and I didn’t need to lure the demon on some kind of hunt to get me food. At some point, I decided to double down and partially reveal my storage skill, too. I’d had enough days of sleeping on a stone floor with broken bones and a raw mana core. Caving, I eventually grabbed my bed from storage.

When my mana core worked, I wasn’t afforded any real amount of downtime, but whenever I was recovering, I dabbled further into my non-magical hobbies, earning a few crafting skill levels along the way.

Drawing has reached level 13!

Architecture has reached level 10!

Woodworking has reached level 18!

Stonemasonry has reached level 10!

Clothworking has reached level 7!

The extra Drawing levels made me consider making another soul blueprint and adding another temporary structure to my Stygian Citadel to help out -- maybe some sort of summoning or ritual room -- but I doubted I’d finish anything new before grabbing the last Spatial Magic level.

Augment-wise, Architecture grabbed a bonus to the quality of my materials, a not-so-subtle dig at the crappy paper and ink I’d been using thus far. With how long ago I’d grabbed Stonemasonry, it was a surprise to see it hit the Initiate rank at the same time as the more recent Architecture. Then again, I’d focused hard on the latter, whereas the prior had been put to the wayside recently. We had everything we needed stone-wise, and when we didn’t, I usually made things out of metal now. Unsurprisingly, it earned a bonus when crafting kitchenware, including utensils, cups, pots, and pans. 

As to be expected, going from level 36 to 40 in an Epic skill took far longer than leveling most of the other skills I was training, and soon I began to hit other lesser milestones, too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

“What a strange weapon! Looks weaker than that hammer than yours, but who knows? Maybe you’ll surprise me.”

While I still didn’t have a standard axe to fight with, by now, I was well-accustomed to fighting with a pickaxe. Though the weight in my hands wasn’t quite as familiar as that of the pick Suds had gifted me, I gripped down hard on the comfortable argent haft of my newer Ore Muncher’s Pick. Considering I wasn’t using it for mining, the stat bonuses were essentially irrelevant, but I still hoped the sharper points might pierce Cezerra’s skin where my war hammer had failed.

The moment I started channeling mana into the weapon, the battle began. With a roar, Cezerra advanced, only my Spatial Step and heightened agility keeping the fight from ending instantly. Again and again, I ducked under and dashed around her fists, slamming the pick into her with abandon, but she was unmoved. A few strikes managed to pierce her flesh, but the wounds were superficial, at least to someone with as ridiculous a regenerative ability as hers.

One big one. I just have to go all in. Seeing that the lesser blows were doing me no good, I switched to pure evasion, buying time for Overload Weapon to fully charge up my next strike. Let’s do fire and death this time. The usual regeneration-bane combination. The cost was exceptional, especially as I kept chaining Spatial Steps to run away from the stampeding madwoman, but I was sinking the entire fate of the spar into this one blow.

At last, when the flames licked at my fingers and the cold sterility of death began to seep into my bones, I struck. One more Spatial Step, right to her side. Fully committing to the attack, I swung with all my might, using every point of Strength I possessed.

With how invested I was in landing a solid hit, my body was in an awful position to dodge, and so, when the giant fist came hurtling towards me, there was little I could do.

Two massive blows connected at the same time.

Unfortunately, one was the clear winner.

Standing tall, not seeming to care in the least bit about the flaming, black-tinged gouge taken out of her side, Cezerra laughed as she looked down upon me. Flung away, first from the power of her strike and second from the explosive backlash of my own attack, I lay on the ground wheezing with a deep indent in my armor.

Well… damn. That could have gone better.

At least there something good that came out of it.

Axes has reached level 20!

Congratulations! You have reached the Apprentice rank in Axes!

Based on your skill usage, you have been granted a skill augment for achieving a new skill rank.

Augment of the Unconventional

+5 Strength and +5 levels to Axes when wielding a non-traditional axe (pickaxe, lumber axe, etc.)

Class Quest Completed: Raise a weapon skill to level 20 (Repeatable)

+2 Class Points

+5000xp

Dismissing my armor and slowly regaining my breath, somehow, I failed to be as thrilled as I should have.

Maybe next time…

~~~~~~~~~~~~

For the umpteenth time, I danced around Cezerra, dodging her heavy blows as I retaliated with my blade whenever I saw an opening. It felt strangely like I was a rogue, for once, almost entirely relying on my Dexterity to fight, and I questioned why I was even bothering to wear heavy armor. Wasn’t a full third of my class focused on defense?

Actually, maybe I could take a solid hit now? I have a few levels in Intrusion Resistance, and I wasn’t really overloading my armor the last time she wailed on me. Eager to pit my Epic class against Cezerra’s Uncommon attacks, I sent a solid chunk of earth mana into my armor. The extra weight made my evasive maneuvers a bit more taxing, but certainly the trade-off would be-

WHAM.

Heavy Armor has reached level 20!

Judging by the fist-sized indent in both my summoned earthen armor and the metal below, the trade-off was not worth it. By the time the fight ended, the only reason I managed to hold back my groans were the rest of the notifications waiting for me.

Congratulations! You have reached the Apprentice Rank in Heavy Armor!

Based on your skill usage, you have been granted a skill augment for achieving a new skill rank.

Enhancer’s Augment

Skills that empower or enhance your armor have their defensive properties empowered by an additional 5%.

Class Quest Completed: Raise an Armor skill to level 20 (Repeatable)

+2 Class Points

+5000xp

The augment was appreciated, small though it was. With Arcane Armory active 100% of the time I was in heavy armor, the boost would always be in use. 

While I would continue to try to heighten my defenses enough to withstand the demon’s attacks, though, a part of me wondered if it was even worth it. 

Might as well train one of my other armor skills, right? I’d fought in leather armor enough over the past two years that Medium Armor was getting close to the Initiate rank. Maybe the reduced weight would help me dodge better?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

WHAM.

Medium Armor has reached level 10!

Congratulations! You have hit the Initiate rank in Medium Armor!

…

Pain Resistance has reached level 20!

Congratulations! You have hit the Apprentice rank in Pain Resistance!

…

Involuntarily, my hands gripped at my chest as if that would somehow fix the new set of broken ribs I was sporting.

Nope. Bad idea. Very bad idea. Back to heavy armor.

In the aftermath of the fight, I slunk back to bed, only able to bear the pain with the new tier of Pain Resistance. Thankfully, the augment focused on broken bones, an unfortunately commonplace occurrence in the last ten levels of the skill. 

Otherwise, the rest of my notifications failed to offer me any relief. The extra class point was a plus, as was an Initiate augment that slightly increased my Dexterity while wearing medium armor, but nothing could cut the sting of Cezerra’s booming laughter. Even when I escaped all the way to my bed in the ritual room, I could still hear her outside.

“Leather armor! Hah! Very brave. Very stupid. What did you expect?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was both a blessing and curse when I realized I had no other easy class quests to knock out. Light Armor lagged behind at level 7, mostly only having leveled on the rare occasions I fought without armor at all. With Perpetual Armor keeping Arcane Armory active 24/7, that was a far more reasonable thing to do these days, as even cloth would normally have the strength of plate armor.

Given my recent experiences, one could forgive me for holding off on leveling it for now.

Weapons were more of a mixed bag. Spears, Archery, and Hammers had long since hit the Apprentice rank, and while their progress had been decent, the highest among them was Hammers at 24. With the recent class quest completion for Swords and Axes, I didn’t have any lower-leveled skills about to hit the next rank either.

Maybe I’ll dip into my class space and start earmarking what skills I want soon. I was hesitant to actually grab anything new right now. When I inevitably had to fight Cezerra for real, I’d rather catch her off guard with a big spike of power rather than letting her get used to my new skills during our spars. To that end, I’d almost exclusively focused on my Spatial Magic during our fights lately, afraid of letting her develop Mental Resistance. As much as I could level my skills and hone my strategies against Cezerra, nothing stopped her from doing the same to me.

I’ll look once I’m laid up in bed. Once again, my cruel taskmaster was forcing me to put my mana core through the ringer again. No matter how many times I told her to wait for me to hit the next level in Spatial Magic, she didn’t seem to care.

“Today’s the day! I can feel it.” Impatiently swatting at me to get on with it, Cezerra loomed over my shoulders while I crouched down to the ritual.

Already, she’d crushed some crystal from the collection site, sprinkling it over the carved stone. For good measure, she’d even shed a few drops of blood, claiming the demonic mana would hopefully empower the ritual. Not that it had worked the previous times, but I supposed every little bit helped. Now, all that remained was for me to dump my mana in and then fail to push through the spatial barrier.

A braid of mana twisted out from my fingers, half pure, half spatial, the two rapidly spreading through the entirety of the ritual as my mana pool plummeted. Like countless times before, I felt the first phases of the ritual activate only to jerkily halt when confronted by the dungeon’s spatial barrier.

My awareness drifted away from my body, hijacked by the ritual, and everything faded away save for the mana, the space, and the pressure. I sharpened my will, pushing with everything I had to pierce the pocket dimension’s protections, already reflexively wincing from the expected backlash.

And, in one sense, things went exactly as I’d imagined they would. I pushed and I pushed until-

CRACK.

Something gave way, and I could feel as my awareness spasmed before snapping back to my body.

Only, this time, something was different. A notification arrived with a new skill level, but for once, it wasn’t Backlash Resistance.

Spatial Magic has reached level…

Whatever the system had to say was put to the side as the ritual before me began to glow with a murky, blackish light, and for a moment, I was too stunned to recognize what was happening.

Hell. I actually did it. I knew the ritual was helping things along, but after years of training, I’d finally pushed my magic far enough to break through the dungeon’s barrier. If I had the right ritual, we could go home now…

The sheer weight of that realization temporarily overshadowed the much more immediate consequences of my breakthrough, and it was only Cezerra’s booming laughter that brought me back to the present.

“Yes! Finally!” She cackled madly as the mana above the diagram churned and twisted, the fabric of space stretching apart until a small hole formed.

One instant, there was nothing. The next, it was here. As the massive beast appeared in the bounds of the ritual, it was clear that the ritual had succeeded at last.

Demonic Summoning has reached level 6!

Ritual Magic has reached level 4!

Under different circumstances, I might have marveled at what I’d done. Reaching across dimensional boundaries, I’d plucked a demon from the depths of the hells.

Unfortunately, my position left something to be desired. Still crouching down with my hand on the edge of the diagram, I barely got a warning before a hideous creature was snarling in my face. I lunged back with a yelp even as I took it in, for the first time getting a visual on what I’d been trying so hard to summon.

Far from Cezerra’s or Sett’s bipedal form, the demon stood on all fours, resembling a beast more than anything else. I’d once had the great misfortune of seeing some photos of designer pitbulls, selectively bred until they were more unholy lumps of muscle than actual dogs. If one had taken that general shape, tripled it in size, and pumped it full of steroids, perhaps it would have approached the body before me.

Then again, no one could have mistaken the beast for a mundane dog. For one, it was hairless, a thick reddish black hide making it look more like a distant, eldritch cousin of a rhinoceros. It was the face that truly sealed the deal, though, just close enough to human to push the beast deep into the uncanny valley. While no true intelligence shone in its eyes as the demon snarled at me, there was a sort of savage cunning that shone through.

Drudge: Level 19, 1300/1300hp

The lowest form of demon, born directly from a concentration of demonic mana. At this rank, the demon lacks a soul, only gaining one once it lives and levels enough to evolve. While the drudge is bestowed with a set of bestial instincts, it lacks any true will and is easily suborned and subdued by any sufficiently higher ranked demons around it. 

Without any protections built into the ritual, those “bestial instincts” were on show, and the drudge leapt at me, its maw opening wide to reveal two rows of sharp teeth. Adrenaline flooded my body as I readied myself for a fight, summoning my armor along with a short blade. Already, I was shifting back, fouling its initial aim, but it quickly became clear I needn’t have bothered.

Right before the drudge’s mouth could snap shut on the empty air where my neck had been, it froze.

Then, ignoring me entirely, it calmly prowled over to Cezerra’s side, all hints of aggression vanishing.

While the drudge might have lost any trace of emotion, the same couldn’t be said for Cezerra, not even attempting to hide her ecstatic, fervorous glee. “At last! Just one, but the first of many.” 

Ignoring her new companion for now, the demoness turned to me instead.

“I hope you’re prepared to do that again, human. I’ll be needing much more than that before things start to get really good…”