Hell Difficulty Tutorial

"Your weapon should work against The First One as well if we're lucky. Most of the skills need at least a bit of mana for activation and upkeep, so disrupting the connection he has to other ants should stop him from receiving their mana, and vitality, or ordering them around," Myrra says.

"Only if we're able to keep him impaled on it. How big is The First One?" I ask.

"His head sits at about the same height as mine. His body is covered in pitch-black matte plating. Unlike other ants, he doesn't shine at all. We don't know what skills he has, but just the raw strength and vitality he received made it near impossible to deal with him."

"It's fine, I already have a plan," I tell her.

"You are quick, feral one. What is it?"

When I explain it to her, she starts talking about things like common sense, calling me an idiot, and the like. We repeat the conversation we had when I told her my plan to kill the Living Tree.

In the end, she sighs, "I'm not even surprised, and somehow this sounds a bit more reasonable than your plan for the Living Tree. For now, prepare for it, and I will set some as well. The matriarch left us some things that should help us hold the fort here in Virelia."

"What about [Kin Control]? Is it gone now that the matriarch has died?"

She seems surprised. "First, I learn the matriarch got her kicks by pretending to be her own granddaughter and teasing the lynthari, then I learn about [Kin Control], and now I find that you probably knew before I did. Tell me, feral one, did she like you so much because you so often feel like a lynthari in human skin? Is it because of your bearing? Are you also a Champion candidate?" Each word she says moves her closer to me.

"It's not my fault, Myrra, it's you guys that keep pestering and bullying me," I say in my defense.

"Sure," she sighs, takes a few steps back, and sits on the windowsill of one of the big circular windows. "[Kin Control] is gone, but I don't think she’s even used it lately. She made sure the skill would lose its hold over us as soon as possible and so the ants wouldn't be able to take it over and control us. Now that the matriarch is dead, it should only take a few days."

"So from one point of view, the matriarch was the lynthari’s weakness?"

"If you want to think about it that way, feral one, sure. But at the same time, she could do the same to the ants, especially from within the city, so they didn't dare to attack. That's where your friends stepped in."

She stops looking outside. "Before you came here, I spent a lot of time wondering if I should kill your friends, feral one. The last thing we want is for them to fall into the hands of the Colony again." Myrra giggles, her golden eyes shining, "Some lynthari even wanted me to lure you here and deal with your friends while you were busy."

"But?"

"But they don't know you, feral one." she continues, her eyes on me. "Ever since you entered the room, I’ve felt that thing you’ve been feeding with your power and that you plan to use against the Colony. I feel your connection with the tower, and I know you can return there quickly. And if we fail, you could end up being a bigger problem than the Calamity."

"A wise choice you told them to fuck off, right?"

She laughs again. "Yes, I did. But tell me and be honest. Would you kill me if I allowed it to happen and your friends died?"

"Yes."

"Oh, that absolute certainty of yours. It stings a bit that you said it without hesitation, but I like it. I like it a lot."

"I will be going then."

When I reach the door, she stops me. "Feral one, I did think about killing you and your friends. For causing her death, however indirectly. She sent us to stop the First One from taking their skills. Maybe she would be alive if the enforcers and I had stayed here."

"Maybe," I pause.

"Yes, maybe. I will see you later, then," she says.

I leave after that, and unsurprisingly, half of the enforcers, the strongest among the lynthari, stand there. Just in case, ready to rush in to protect their new matriarch.

They issue a short greeting as I pass by them, and Myrra's bodyguard leads me to the exit.

"Please be careful," he says before I leave him behind.

Once again, I use kinetic energy to push myself high into the air, and this time, I fly over to check in on the old enchanter, Cael.

The first thing Cael asks me is whether the weapon he and other enchanters helped me with performed well. The second question is if I could help him get access to what remains of the Living Tree to examine it for materials. It’s not until his third question that he asks about the attack on the city and the matriarch's death.

Are all craftspeople like that?

I answer his questions and spend the rest of the day discussing my plans. At some point, the two of us are not enough, and he leads me to the Craft Guild.

The Craft Guild is one of the biggest buildings in the city and the most luxurious, clearly showing how important their work is. We enter without trouble, and I learn that Cael was once the vice guild master.

Of course.

"Young Sir, please! Look at this enchantment I created!"

"Mister, could you explain how this works for me?"

"It's him! The young man that inscribed that stone!"

"The guild master wanted him as vice guild master…"

A bunch of men and women keep pestering us as we pass through the room, and I'm surprised how quickly the information regarding our presence spreads.

It's awkward, the way they keep looking at me like I just invented chocolate or something. As if I'm some kind of celebrity.

How would they look at me if I told them it's mostly my high-level skills, combined with massive quantities of mana, and money that allowed me to perform an amount of testing that would be impossible even for most mid-guilds? Especially when it’s all being wasted on a single person.

Actually, should I tell them? It would be fun to watch.

Instead, we eventually get rid of these people and reach the highest floor of the building where all the high-ranking enchanters reside, when they are here, and where the guild master is. Six men are already waiting impatiently within the circular room. Cael sent them a message before we arrived.

I stop in front of the door after feeling their presence with my skill.

For a moment, I examine the inscriptions all around me. On the door, in the walls, on the ceiling, inside small mana stones hidden within the floor and connected through web-like pathways. There is so much of it, and just examining them takes my mind off useless stuff.

"They might be getting impatient," Cael says carefully after a few minutes.

I sigh and gesture to an employee nearby, and he opens the door after bowing.

"Master Gwyn, it's such an honor to have you here!" immediately, one of the men attacks me.

"I'm a massive fan of the work you’ve done!" another one joins in a combined attack.

"Theo, Davi, please, leave it for later and do not pester him. You are old enough to have some self-control," Cael defends me.

"That's easy for you to say. You are keeping him for yourself! You should share..."

"Davi! That's rude to say in front of our guest! " Finally, the guild master of the Craft Guild reacts.

He’s even older than Cael and has long gray hair and an impressive beard. He is the perfect image of a wise old archmage you might see in children's stories. Even a cosplayer couldn’t do a better job.

“Allow me to welcome you, Mister Gwyn. Cael told me about the things you’ve been working on, and I was able to find some help. In a few minutes, a few more people will be arriving. They started immediately after they heard about it.”

I can only stare at him. For some time, I’ve been thinking about what I should do to pay them back for all the help they gave me while I was working on inscriptions to alter the functionality of my epic weapons and the arcanadium shaft that combined them.

But this?

Seeing their faces, hearing them gulp to keep from drooling every time I step closer to the empty mana stones on the table.

Paying them back? Hell no, it looks like I'm not using them enough, seeing their greedy eyes. It's at the point I’m starting to have suspicions that I'm the one being taken advantage of.

The door opens and a few more men rush in, excitedly asking if we already started.

“I'm too busy, so let's start. If someone else joins later, you can inform them,” I take a few steps towards the table in the middle and pull out the epic mana stone Sophie bought for me for 5000 shards and put it on the table, of mid or upper epic grade.

It's as big as a baseball and other than being a storage unit for mana and other energies, it doesn't have any other effect. What makes it an epic item is the amount of energy it can contain. The mana stone already has a lot of thermal energy inside of it, yet I continue to store more, and the golden flames lazily swirl inside.

I look around the room, “There are three goals I want to reach.”

Their eyes flick between me and the stone.

“First, store as much energy as I can inside this stone. Two parts thermal, one part kinetic,” without hesitation, I tell them about the Primordial energies I have and ignore the looks of pure shock even Cael gives me.

I need help with this as even now I feel that soon I won't be able to store anymore. It's either the way I store it, the item's rarity, or there’s something I’m missing. Maybe it's just too much of it; I didn't hold back when I started filling it, unlike the time I created one to bomb the ants. But that doesn't seem to be it; the stone is an epic item, so it should easily handle something like that.

"Second, come up with a mechanism that will release all that energy at once when I want it to, as well as the energies of other filled mana stones near it."

Sure, I could start feeding it to the point where it can't hold anymore and is about to explode. However, unlike orbs made of mana, I don't have as strong a connection to it and it lacks that intuitive feeling. It would be unfortunate if the stone exploded somewhere in Obelia's tower and took a good chunk of the city with it.

“Third, there is one of my skills I need to make sure it will work with…” As I continue to explain, they watch me, a childish curiosity replaced by an academic one, and I can see gears in their heads spinning already as they start coming up with solutions and ideas.

All of them quietly listen and let me talk, waiting for a pause to start talking about how they would go about it.

Yup, let's just fake it and pretend I know what I'm talking about because I need their help. Just one of my orbs is not enough. It would be powerful, yes, but not enough.

I will nuke these bitches into oblivion for touching what is mine.

 

---

 

I return to the tower late that night, more tired than I’ve been in a long time. Not physically but mentally.

Everyone else is already asleep, and I find the quiet of the tower really comfortable, more so for the fact that no one will try to speak to me this deep into the night.

I pull one of the armchairs out onto the balcony and plop down.

The city is dim and quiet, yet in the distance, I can see the lights all around the trunk of the Living Tree outside of the city. Lynthari guarding it.

Yawning, I stare out at it and think about how I feel about it dying without my contribution. I reflect on what happened and what I could change, but in the end, I stop thinking and just continue to enjoy the quiet.

As if in revenge against my busy day full of meetings, I do not go to sleep and enjoy the feeling of solitude.