Ebony's Fable

“They’re all booked for dozens of expedition parties getting ready to exit. It takes a week or more for a Guardian to spawn and the doors to open.” Ebony reported his scout attempts

“But the doors are open and no one’s fighting, can’t we just enter now?” Ning Xin brought up the main issue.

“We could, and have them come after us when they figured they had to wait another week to exit. Not just them but all those who followed the rules and are lining up.”

“What about those two towers, there are only a few people over there.”

“Let’s ask around.”

The freelancers here were rather respectful and open. Ning Xin did the asking this time, she was worried he didn’t bring across a question properly.

“Woah, I wouldn’t go there if I were you lass.” A bald Dwarf covered the cards in his hands to prevent his opponents from sneaking a peak.

“The guardians get stronger over time. That two towers had multiple failed attempts in a row and hasn’t been cleared in a year or more.” A lizardman that was mostly human in facial features except for a few scales and a tail dealt a card from his hand.

“There would usually be some noble coming to clear it so that regular freelancers like us can exit more freely but I don’t know what those aristocrats are doing. They’ve delayed it for over half a year!” The human female rogue baulked at her cards and drew one from the deck on the wooden barrel.

“If the records are to be believed, the Ruins of Verdant Decay’s guardian can slip into the ranks of a King if more than 2 years passed without being killed or if they have absorbed enough essence. Although it hasn’t been that long, it’s probably sitting at 500. We can barely maintain a survival rate of 95% with these regularly cleared ones at 475 and that’s with proper preparation and experienced clearers who fought the guardian multiple times.” The lizardman smiled and called his victory after the woman discarded a card.

“We can finally leave for my month-long vacation.”

“Any chance we can hop into your expedition raid?” Ning Xin questioned.

‘I never thought about that…’ Out of all possible options, the option of joining one of the expeditions didn’t even come to mind. It was either cutting the queue or tackling one of the two towers with no takers.

“You’d have to talk to the current leader. You’re in luck, Endersyn usually takes in just about anyone. For a price. He’s a greedy one but that makes him flexible. Raids he leads don’t have the highest survivable rate so do what you will.”

“Thanks, where can we find him?”

It didn’t even take ten minutes before their conversation with Endersyn concluded. For a small price of fourty Blues per person, they were allowed in. With a test of strength, they could pay less depending on their role in battle or how much they’ve contributed.

“I’ve never seen you two, first time?” Endersyn was a lean warrior who carried two machete-like swords and wore light leather armour.

Ebony tried not to Appraise people nowadays since it was often misleading. Their natural instincts were usually far more reliable regarding whether someone was strong or not. This Endersyn felt somewhere between Athena, their war buddy and Lucas the lizardman disciple of the Empire’s Emperor.

“Mmm.” Ebony nodded in reply. Although he beat Lucas in an exchange, that was purely on the lizardman’s close combat and skill with the spear. His actual evaluation of the disciple’s fighting capacity was pretty high after watching short moments where he fought against King Trolls, a feat Ebony wasn’t capable of at that time. He might not even be capable of that now.

From the short time they’ve spent in Tidal, he noticed the reason some could sense how strong they were and not others. It was simply the ability to sense his mana or their overflowing essence in general.

No matter how well he hid it, he had excess mana and it had to go somewhere. Even if he had an empty mana ore on his myriad bracelet, the conversion and absorption of the tool weren’t perfect. His method was simply to push down all overflowing essence into the ground for it to dissipate. Incorporating a couple of tips and tricks that the Frost Elves taught him to make it harder to detect. However, none of them were stealth experts and he wasn’t one either.

‘With how much mana I have, I guess I need to pick up a skill to hide it to some extent. There’s no point being physically invisible if my mana’s an obvious sign.’ Ebony knew that there was a smaller proportion of warriors and non-mages who were able to sense his thin and purposefully diluted mana but in the long run, most of his opponents would be capable of mana sense.

There was no need to mention Ning Xin’s overflowing vitality, her mantle only hides up to 90% of her excess and that might drop once she started increasing her Vitality stat. Most warriors also had heightened instincts and could sense a beast when they encountered one.

In her current state with her hair a deep blood red, 10% of her excess was enough for people to hold their tongue.

“Just take note not to kill the Fungalspire Gila or the guardian will go into a berserk state,” Endersyn warned them.

“What does the Fungalspire Gila look like?” Ning Xin was the one who needed the information the most. Her accidental reflex might cause others to suffer if she killed some random monster that caused the Guardian to get stronger.

“A green, large lizard. Four of them would appear, when you kill one the guardian would get a momentary burst of power. It would retain the enhancement for five minutes or so, dying down to a small permanent enhancement throughout the hunt. We have four parties to deal with the Gila, they need coordination. You’ll have to join the actual battle.”

“Weird. Why have four minions instead of using that energy to strengthen the guardian.” Ebony muttered.

“To deal with numbers. We’ve been changing tactics over the centuries and the dungeon’s adapting. Ideally, we’ll be killing one or two of the Fungalspire Gila during the battle to make use of its enraged and uncoordinated state to deal as much damage as we can. Like…that thing in your hands. Crazy mages…my mana sense’s about to melt from that.”

“So, do you think this is enough?”

“It’ll be a big hit, but I’m more afraid that’ll kill more of us than the guardian. This is troublesome…using it at the start would probably wipe out the Gila’s while the guardian’s still alive. But we can’t stay out of range or behind protection if you were to unleash that in the middle of the fight. Can I ask that you scrap that dangerous spell?”

“The guardian’s just standing inside right with the doors wide open right?”

“Are you suggesting you toss that in with everyone outside the towers? The doors to the tower would close within half a minute once any foreign entity or energy such as a spell goes in. That would defeat the purpose of the exit hunt. Even if it doesn’t die, the doors won’t reopen until the guardian’s fully healed. That used to work in the past but the dungeon adapted to strong mages with overly prepared spells like this.” Endersyn knocked down his idea without even listening to it.

Ebony pulled his hand away, the sudden loss of touch made him turn to a disappointed masked lady.

‘Wrong move. That was dumb of me.’

He pocketed the miniature bomb that was barely filled with any of the masked lady’s explosive elements. He could make an outer shell so much more resilient and heat resistant that it was a pity they couldn’t take the opportunity to test its new limits.

On second thoughts, it would probably kill him too if he couldn’t Flicker out of range when the tower was made of virtually indestructible dungeon walls. It would be a nice experiment to see if they could damage the dungeon walls the next time they visited.

They picked this particular tower because the hunt was coincidentally scheduled to begin in less than an hour. No one had time to waste with the tight schedule so not more than a few hours were wasted after the tower doors opened.

‘I guess I’ll send a Model to class while I have breakfast.’ Ebony planned his course of action.

Upon entry, he saw that the tower’s interior was just a wide open space. Endlessly tall ceilings above them freed the airspace for flight. It was quite similar to Ordina’s Guardian room except for the swampy flooring.

‘Let’s take a look.’

[Serpent of Verdant Decay Lvl 475]

‘I didn’t expect a snake to be the guardian. I thought it would be some kind of tough and durable creature like a golem.’ Ebony walked between the combatants who were leaving their workplace to go home.

The non-combatants were tightly huddled up and circled by fifteen warriors.

There was one arcane support mage present who bathed everyone present with her mana. It was similar to his sound magic except the support mage’s mana just sat still in the target’s body instead of vibrating.

Ebony wasn’t the only one who rejected the support mage’s mana into him. Not everyone trusted each other enough to have some random mage’s mana inside them.

But the physical buff the arcane support mage was giving the close combatants was impressive. Her party members were the most fluid with the foreign mana enhancement and were dealing with a Fungalspire Gila. A monitor lizard five metres long and three metres tall. Ebony couldn’t tell what was so special about these oversized green lizards.

As for the Serpent of Verdant Decay, now that was one intimidating creature. Metal weapons rot upon contact with its slimy scales. It would probably do the same to all organic matter that came into contact. Fortunately, these frequent clearers had specialised weapons and were more than capable of reinforcing their armour and weapons with mana.

The serpent was about as thick as the monitor lizard but it was over ten metres long, slithering in the swamp and between giant mushrooms that were conjured out of nowhere.

‘Oh so those monitor lizards help with environmental and positional placements. Now that’s interesting. No wonder killing one or two would be worth the trade for a slightly stronger guardian.’ He saw the Gila’s usefulness in the battle when it came to dealing with large numbers of opponents.

“Hey, you’re not going to make a move?” Ning Xin had been controlling herself from joining the battle because he hadn’t made a move. They were no different from the scholars and crafters who were buying a ticket out at the moment.

He wasn’t very financially smart but he knew they were probably ripped off with the price of the ticket. It was expected since they basically bought the urgent ticket that skipped months' worth of queues.

“They look like they got it down. I feel like I’ll disrupt their teamwork. You go ahead, I’ll step in if anything happens.” His words cooled her enthusiasm. It was not fun joining in on a hunt with over thirty people ganging up on one snake.

The snake spit globs of slime at them but Ebony didn’t even need to make a move as their guard stone mage cast the spell that he had been preparing at the side since the beginning.

‘Capable. Their individual strengths being relatively higher than most people we’ve met aside, they are not bad at what they do.’ Ebony only stepped in when the serpent was riddled with wounds and it gained a burst in speed and power when the second Fungalspire Gila conducted a suicidal attack on the party that suppressed it.

Shielding eight of them from an explosion of rot mana got him their gratitude but they remained vigilant and continued the assault without a pause. Further raising Ebony’s assessment of these dungeon clearers. He really couldn’t estimate any of these Grandmaster fighters.

Sadly for the Guardian, these dungeon clearers already fought the serpent multiple times. On the eighth floor where parties were rejoined, teamwork wasn’t an issue. Since staying within the dungeon long term was natural, most of them knew each other and could work in large groups. A group of experienced hunters could hunt a snake despite its advantage in speed and power.

The only problem was the deadly powers of rot and the random bursts of power that could catch people off guard. Its steel-tipped tail honestly scared no one present. The crafters only marvelled at the material for its properties while the scholars thought about its use in various industries like alchemy or magic construction material viability.

Ebony was forced to leave the backseat because his use of mana showed the dungeon how delicious of a snack he was. Unlike Ordina, most other dungeons don’t immediately chase him down for his flesh and mana. Their sensitivity and desperation towards how beneficial he was to them varied greatly. To a huge dungeon like the Ruins of Verdant Decay, one Ebony didn’t account for much when it had millions of other possible prey.

At least, that was what he assumed.

Ebony Flickered towards the Serpent and an axe kick slammed into its slimy head. The expedition party screamed at his stupidity for touching the Serpent.

For his Augmentation not to show any visible flames on his skin or robes, it had to run below 15% of its maximum capacity. He would glow blue but it wouldn’t be as eye-catching.

The kick barely pushed the Serpent’s head down an inch. The Serpent snapped its head forward to swallow him whole but found no purchase except a tiny bump below its jaw. Ebony shifted his upper body aside and gave the Serpent an uppercut that had more force behind it than the unaugmented kick.

He placed his palms on the tail swipe that came at him like a giant cleaver and vaulted over the tail while freezing the area where his hands touched.

“Keep it up ice warrior! Come on, attack while it’s focused on him!” A dwarven warrior encouraged him to continue keeping the Serpent focused on him.

‘It’s so fast. And clumsy.’ Ebony was aware of the Serpent’s undivided attention on him now.

He ducked, dipped and countered every aggressive attempt of the serpent. It was even faster than Ning Xin’s blade but far clumsier in his eyes. His kicks and punches didn’t do much harm to the Serpent but the Serpent’s rot couldn’t even get past his skin.

He felt a layer of his mana being torn down but it was tearing his mana down so slowly that it didn’t matter. The fact that it could damage his mana chassis itself was worrisome but the degree of damage was too small for him to see as a threat. He was healing it faster.

‘It can permanently disable a mage? I can see why it’s so dangerous.’ Ebony realised that the Serpent’s durability was also thanks to the fact that all the spells it was hit by were rotting before it even damaged it, be it elemental or arcane. It aimed at mana itself rather than the spell’s formations itself.

Ning Xin stepped in soon after because of how long they were taking. She only used her Vitality-based enhancement so that her body temperature didn’t melt the people in the same room. But that was more than enough for her to get up to half the Serpent’s speed. It shouldn’t take long before her blades reached the same speed as the serpent with her Sword Art.

Her blades didn’t even put a nick on the Serpent’s scales.

Periodically, she pulsed her heart with another burst of Vitality to give herself a greater physical stat buff but the Serpent was living up to its reputation of being tough to kill. It didn’t help that the conjured mushrooms were sending healing spores throughout the tower. It healed the injuries the Serpent sustained while acting as a poison for everyone else who had to be wary of breathing in those spores.

On the bright side, the spores were visible and could be avoided.

Ebony deprived the ‘tanks’ of the hunting party of their jobs as the Serpent was mostly focused on him. He had already sneaked in the miniature bomb inside the Serpent and hurt it internally but it was too weak of a bomb to cause real damage.

“Gas coming!” Everyone including Ning Xin leapt back at the warning. Everyone but Ebony.

Numerous scales on the serpent flipped up and released green gas that covered half the room.

“Damn! You alive in there!? We don’t have a healer!” The bald dwarf who was playing cards earlier regretted not pulling him away.

“He’s fine. Continue.” Ning Xin replied while sending her blood halo forward.

Her blood haloes faltered and splattered over the ground before reaching the Serpent.

“Organic elements are the weakest against rot. Just use fire. Lia cast heat protection on us.” Endersyn ordered. The arcane mage took four seconds to send her spell to everyone except Ebony.

‘No protection for me? Oh, my mana sense is interrupted. I guess spells can’t reach us through this rotting gas.’ He let loose more of his Augmentation since his flames shouldn’t affect people who were standing outside the green gas as much. Giving the eager serpent a casual kick to its nose. It sent the tired Serpent slamming into the hardy wall of the tower.

‘This wall is useful.’ Ebony Flickered forward and caught the incoming tail with open arms before spinning like a frisbee and slamming the poor disorientated snake’s head into the indestructible wall once again.