63 DanMachi 33
The 74th floor was the same as the last one, the only difference was that the islands here doubled in size. From what I could spot, no new biome types were added. The nearby islands all but one had hilly biomes, that should spawn Earth Wyverns, with the last one being totally barren, except for the black spiral reaching high up to the skies.
The viewing of the scenery was quickly interrupted by a large, but rapidly shrinking shadow of a truck-sized motherfucker of a bird. Its cry, just before it dived at us at full speed way exceeding that of sound, shook the island only moments after it arrived at our location.
Olive with her sky-high agility, and her ability to already move faster than sound, reacted just in time to push me out of the way, but at the same time, stand right in the way of the creature's claws. In a blink of an eye, I find myself on the ground a few meters away from her, looking in her direction.
Her protective pendant activates, creating a rapidly spinning shield, formed of countless hexagons, in an attempt to block the claw attack, but shattering instantly upon contact. The brief slowdown in the monster's momentum, allowed her to tilt out of the majority of the dangers way, but still got injured in the process. As if her armor was made out of paper, the claws of the bird grazed her shoulder, cleaving right through her armor and leaving a large V-shaped gash on her shoulder, almost separating her arm from the rest of her body. She drops to the ground holding the wound, while a grimace of pain plasters her face.
I spring into action, as my rage boils, [Focus], [Multitasking], and [Multicasting] activate in full power, creating a [Gift of Life] sending out pulses of healing magic towards Olive, while at the same time [Magic Penetration] [Alter Orb] sends of rays of highly condensed mana particles towards the culprit, but as if it had a sixth sense or at least eyes on his back, it skillfully dodges them all. Waves of [Arsenal] spears form around me, all infused to the brim, and fire off toward the creature, which again, promptly dodges them all, as it turns in the air and changes its course to intercept us. But just before it arrives at its destination it opens its wings wide and fires off waves of enchanted feathers our way. Feathers the length of an arm, surrounded by white whirlpools from all the infused air affinity mana.
"Fuck!" I [Blink] to Olive's location, and manually cast [Svalinn] infusing fifty thousand points of mana into it. With all the passive boost in magic, I receive, the spell holds strong, way stronger than the pendant version, as the hundreds of feathers impact its surface doing no damage at all. While the ones that missed us, cleave right through the island, exiting on the other side of it, and the island wobbles. I spread my mana senses all around us, focusing on morphing the mana in the air into that of gravity affinity, attempting to condense space in the creature's way.
The trap partially succeeds, as it flew through it, grazing it with only the edge of its wing, and pulled it right out of its socket, sending the bird spiraling out of control. [Alter Orb]s rays, this time, find its target cleaving right through its head, frying its pea-sized brain and granting me the last level I needed to max out my Mage class, which results in a plethora of system notifications assaulting my vision. The remains of the bird impact the island with such a force, that it tilts to the side, breaking 2 out of 4 bridges to our right. We both hit the side of my magical shield, as the islands start's rocking back and forth, but thankfully, it slowly starts stabilizing. Grunting from the impact, I ignore the notifications for now and turn to the floored Olive.
"Are you alright?" I ask, in a panic after spotting all the blood on the ground around her. I check the place where the wound on her shoulder was, while simultaneously casting a [Celestial Eye] to keep a watch on the skies above us.
"Yeah, I'm okay." She says with a sigh. "That attack almost killed you." She looks up at me, with a wry smile on her face. Truly it was she, who, almost died a few moments, and we both know it. If that claw ended up a few centimeters lower, or more to her left, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now. She does this all the time, while consciously knowing that I could have used my title's ability to resurrect me once every one hundred days, resulting in her sacrifice being truly unnecessary. I keep quiet and just accept it with a sigh.
"Thanks for that by the way." I say scratching the side of my head. "How's your shoulder?" I ask changing the topic and check the damage she received. Her right shoulder guards were nowhere to be seen. Similarly, the top right part of her armor was shredded to pieces, exposing some of her cleavage, while the top of her armor was only kept up by her left shoulder strap.
"I almost lost an arm there, it was dangling off, held up by a few strands of tissue, but your spell reknitted the flesh and reconnected everything." She says tightening her right first without a visible issue. "But as you see I'm alright now, so you can stop worrying." She says giving me a small smile and extending her left arm towards me, in a request to pull her up. I sight and do so, but she wobbles on her feet and grabs tightly onto me.
"You lost quite a lot of blood there, your vitality should regenerate it fast, but sit down and take a break, while I go through my system notifications." She nods but instead of sitting, she drops to the ground and lays down on her back, not even pretending to be okay anymore. I shake my head and sit next to her, but just before I check my notifications, Olive asks.
"So what do we call that thing?"
"Hmm..." I think about it and one thing quickly comes to my mind. "How about Roc?"
"As in stone?" She asks looking at me with a rises eyebrow.
"Hah!" A loud laugh escapes my throat. "No, not rock, it doesn't have a K at the end of it. A Roc, with a c, is a beast from Middle Eastern mythology, it was supposed to be a huge eagle-like bird, with the ability to fly, while carrying elephants in its claws."
"That does sound like the thing you just fought." She agrees. "Okay, from now on the bird fucker will be dubbed as Roc, with a C!" She exclaims, rising her pointer finger to the sky, it was good seeing her in high spirits, after that butchered-up fight.
I refocus my attention on my status screen and check my notifications.
[Roc (Level 7) slain 900 XP Received]
[Class: [Mage] Max level reached additional class experience discarded]
[Class: [Arch-Mage] unlocked.]
[Class: [Black Mage] unlocked.]
[Class: [Blue Mage] unlocked.]
[Class: [Burst Mage] unlocked.]
[Class: [Green Mage] unlocked.]
[Class: [Red Mage] unlocked.]
[Class: [White Mage] unlocked.]
[Class: [Rune Mage] unlocked.]
[Class: [Paper Mage] unlocked.]
[Class: [Mind Mage] unlocked.]
[Class: [Mana Mage] unlocked.]
[New class selection available]
[Selectable classes: [Actor], [Adventurer (DanMachi)], [Aeromancer], [Archer], [Arch-Mage], [Arch-Sorcerer], [Arch-Wizard], [Assassin], [Blacksmith], [Bookworm], [Cartographer], [Chef], [Chronomancer], [Divine Slayer], [Enchanter], [Geomancer], [Gunner], [Heretic Mage], [Heretic Warrior], [Hydromancer], [Luxmancer], [Mana Mage], [Mind Mage], [Necromancer], [Painter], [Paper Mage], [Pyromancer], [Rune Mage], [Sage], [Samurai], [Sanamancer], [Spatiomancer], [Teacher], [Umbramancer], [Warrior], [White Mage]]
36 selectable classes in total and a lot of them are contenders for the top spot. I really need to get another class slot, to level up multiple classes at the same time.
The White Mage one, which Olivia also has, doesn't really compliment her fighting style, nor did it mine, but it did come with a large bonus to healing magic, and it also granted an ability called [Resurrect]. It had a thirty-day cooldown and could bring back a dead person from the afterlife.
I had to wonder how that worked in worlds where the souls straight up went into the circle of reincarnation, but without knowledge about the underlining principles, I could only guess. Truthfully, the class was really tempting, especially after that near call a few moments ago.
The other interesting one was Rune Mage, providing a bonus for all rune-based spell casts, while at the same time granting the user an ability called [Runic Imbuement], allowing the user to imbue runes with new concepts. Practically allowing the user to create new types of runes or whole new runic languages.
Paper Mage, made me feel like it had a connection to the scribe class, because it granted experience from writing, while at the same time granting the user two abilities [Scroll Infusion], [Grimoire Infusion]. Allowing the creation of one-time-use spells, in a form of a scroll, and the creation of a book that could teach a spell or skill after reading it. Making the teaching class and skill almost unnecessary.
Mind Mage seemed to come from my [Mind Arts] ability, granting me an extreme boost in all of my mind-related abilities, skills, and magic, while at the same time granting an ability called [Mind Control], which, as its name states, allows the full control of a person's mind, without them noticing something was wrong. Similar to the [Imperio] spell, but a lot more powerful. A scary ability and truthfully, one of the top contenders, if not for my next, but the one after that, class.
Lastly, Mana Mage was something truly interesting, not only did it boost mana regeneration and total mana capacity, it came with something called [Mana Eyes], granting the user a long-range sight ability, allowing the user to see even base-type mana without anything impeding his view and the need to interact with it. One neat feature of the skill was the ability to see through obstacles, the other to predict the strength of an enemy, by seeing the amount of mana inside of their body.
I straight up attempted to replicate the skill by imbuing my eyes with mana, only to make them sting from pain and provide no benefits at all. I was certain that skill could be unlocked another way, and later on, I will experiment with it.
The most interesting option, however, was the one Olivia similarly unlocked not so long ago. It provided no real bonuses but came with an extremely versatile ability, so without a bat of an eye, I chose it.
Blue Mage 0/50
+2 INT, +1 WIS, +2 PER per level
Gain the ability [Observational Learning], allowing the learning of innate abilities, skills, or spells of other creatures.
20% reduced damage received from abilities, skills, or spells you also possess.
[Class: [Blue Mage] selected.]
[Skill: [Observational Learning] unlocked.]
[Observational Learning LVL: MAX]
- Enables the user to acquire innate abilities, skills, or spells of other beings by observing them in action.
- Skills learned through this method require a greater amount of experience to advance to higher levels.
- The probability of learning an innate ability, skill, or spell through observation is enhanced by 0.1% for every point of Perception the user possesses.
While my perception stat was one of my lowest at the moment, even with the Renard class equipped, it still provided me with an 11.1% chance to learn abilities from other entities. This skill's power will increase as I level up, and gain more perception over time.
With my new class selected, and Olive feeling well enough, I picked her up in a princess carry, and flew her over to the next island. The area was barren, gray featureless stone covered the islands in a two kilometers-wide area. The only exception to this was the black spiral, in the middle of it. As the spiral didn't seem to be natural, I assumed some kind of society, at least an undeveloped one, lived there. On the last floor we didn't investigate the spiraling structures, because most of them were quite far away, this time, however, the staircase led us straight next to one of them.
As our feet touched the ground, we expected to hear a Roar, but instead, we were alerted to thousands of chirps in the air, as a swarm of these bird-like creatures flew out of the structure heading straight at us.
Both of us activated our [Destiny] aura and switched its affinity to ice. From experience, we knew that flying feathery fuckers don't like ice weighing them down. In our Roc fight, this spell was practically useless, as the monster moved too fast for it to be affected by it, now however, the creatures closing on us were a lot slower, and were in a large group, so we could affect multiple enemies at the same time. We draw out our swords, [Infusion] already active on them, [Alter Orb] and [Arsenal] already prepared, and we waited in place for the monsters to present themselves on a silver platter, and we didn't have to wait for too long.
Thousands of bird girls, from now on known as Harpies, attacked us with sudden dives and flyby, only to be minced by the combinations of all of our abilities. The barren lands were quickly covered with roasted drumsticks, and chicken legs and littered with fluffy feathers, but their onslaught never abated as their numbers continued to cover most of the sky.
The Harpies, while having a female head, had the bodies of birds, and could be spotted in all kinds of shapes and sizes. The most common ones seemed to be pigeon-like and were about 160 cm in height, but a few rarer, hawk and eagle-like ones, with a larger frame, could be spotted occasionally.
Instead of hands, they had long feathery wings, which spat straight into the face of aerodynamics, and allowed them to fly, even if physics said no. Was it magic keeping them up, or was it some dungeon or world law shenanigans, I had no idea, but my [Observational Learning] was active through the fight, expecting to uncover some of their secrets. Most of their bodies were covered in feathers, while their thin birdlike legs, ended in curved sharp claws, perfect for ripping out large chunks of meat. Because yes, why wouldn't they be carnivorous?
These monsters didn't use any magic, thankfully, and only relied on their claws and razor-sharp, shark-like teeth, that could bite large chunks of flesh out of their targets. If their numbers were lower than a few thousand, the fight would have been a breeze, but instead, we were quickly overwhelmed, and slowly started accumulating scratches, because both of our shield pendant charges, just straight up gave up after a minute of the fight, requiring us, in the end, to bring out the big guns.
Sword slashes, hundreds of meters long and dozens of meters thick littered the sky, as Olive infused her sword with everything she had. Killing hundreds of them in a single swipe. I also didn't dawdle about, using [Gate] I opened hundreds of small spatial distortions around the battlefield, alighting them so they form a barrier around us, then fired off a ray of lightning-infused mana, courtesy of [Alter Orb].
As the beam jumped from gate to gate, it formed a magical net crackling with lightning. Killing everything that came a meter too close to them. [Multitasking] allowed me to split my focus, the calculation for all of the gate positions and magic output, was done in the background, while my true focus was on our surroundings.
The fight was gradually calming down, as the number of monsters dwindled down, and just as we were to dispose of the last of these creatures, the now 16.8% chance of [Observational Learning], proved its worth. I probably need to invest in the Luck stat too, because even observing thousands of Harpies, the skill only triggered when there were barely any living ones left.
[Skill: [Featherweight] learned.]
[Featherweight LVL:1/100]
- Consume mana to decrease your weight by 1%/LVL.
This just opened Pandora's box in me. I'll need to learn every fucking skill any of these dungeon monsters can grant me. As the hunger for power assaults me, a wicked smile appears on my face, but my thoughts are interrupted by the singing pain I felt from one of my cuts. A quick [Gift of Life] fixed the issue, healing both of me and Olive in the process. It was the first time I really used the skill on myself and I was surprised by the itchiness felt all over my skin. I tried not to focus on it, so instead, I directed my attention to the other blinking notifications my status screen was trying to alert me of.
[Endurance excelia reached the maximum for the current level, all future Endurance excelia will be dispersed.]
The system was notifying me that endurance has finally reached the maximum for this level, and with that, the last of my needed stat excelia was filled up, and I could finally level up. Olive maxed out all of her excelia hours ago, thanks to her adventurer class, and she's been waiting for me to complete mine.
That was not our only boon from this encounter, we killed at least two thousand of these creatures, finishing up the repeatable level seven kill quest, twice in a row.
2x [Quest: [Slay 7 (R*8)] Completed 70 WP(x4) Received]
The last benefit from the swarm of these gals, was the experience we received, even at level seven they only gave out 100 experience per kill, probably because they were so weak, but with their numbers, they still provided a nice chunk of experience. They raised my global level by one, allowing me to reach level 76, and at the same time, it raised my class level by a staggering twenty-nine times. While that might seem a lot, the last 21 levels still needed to max out the class, which required almost 700,000 experience, so the true journey only just started. Olive's global level similarly went up by one, allowing her to reach level 74, while her class leveled up nine times in a row and reached all the way to level 35, she however still needed almost half a million experience to reach her max.
"I'm ready to level up!" I say turning to Olive who was already dismantling the corpses and collecting their magical stones. "That's going to take some time..." I sigh and join her.
"I wonder why there isn't a dismantling class, or at least a skill to speed this process up." She comments.
"There might be, but locked under some other class." I say shrugging. "Or whatever we're doing with these corpses is such a low quality that even the system doesn't recognize it as dismantling." I point out with a laugh. "We should really learn from a real hunter." Then it comes to me. "Shouldn't Hunter be a class too?" I ask.
"Following the logic behind the class system, it should be." She stops and thinks about it though.
"We didn't truly hunt anything outside of dungeon monsters. Maybe we should go grab a bow and go to a forest, I bet you if we dismantle the thing we catch, we will get the skill. Same time we should even learn to track animals from their footprints, the skill should be useful in the future."
"Alright plans for the weekend set." She says with a smile.
"Additionally, we could also get the inventory upgrade that allows us to dismantle things inside of it after we get out. It seemed quite useful, and from the description it had, it can dismantle anything."
"Sure." She replies with a shrug. "Sounds interesting."
The collection of the loot was completed pretty fast, thanks to the dungeon ninja looting most of it, we did, however, still acquire a few hundred magical stones, from which I plan on creating new equipment. The failed pendant shields and the ease with which Olive's armor was destroyed, proved that our gear was way too weak for our current environment, so my plans were to remedy that.
After collecting everything we could, we decided to head home. The long dungeon dive exhausted us and after extracting ourselves from the remains of our equipment, we took a quick bath and went straight to bed.
