First of the Legion
'Shit, this is happening much earlier than I thought', I thought.
A giant, purple Serpent was in front of me, staring right into my eyes, which were filled with rage. I guess that's understandable since I suddenly appeared in its home. But this is a dog-eat-dog world. Survival of the fittest, that's the only law around here, and sooner or later, I'm gonna have to accept it.
For a regular person in my past life, I'm feeling no fear or hesitation compared to what I thought I would, at the prospect of a fight.
Anyway, enough of the monologue. I slowly tried moving towards my right, but the Serpent held its gaze. I used [Thought Acceleration] to speed up my perception and thinking speed to react in time whenever it attacked. If I remember correctly, this is the Tempest Serpent, ranked A minus.
Suddenly, it struck at me by whipping its tail towards where I stood. I jumped over the tail towards the left, it all happened in slow motion due to my skill.
'I wish I had a ranged skill like Rimuru had [Water Blade]. It would make life so much easier right now.'
Surprised that its prey had dodged its attack, the Serpent blew out a large cloud of blackish gas.
'This must be its [Poisonous Breath], I need to avoid it no matter what.'
Dodging it turned out to be a not-so-difficult task as I was slowly figuring out my body's capabilities. I rolled out of the way and jumped back a little.
'There's no need to whine and stall, I just need to go in and attack with my bare hands.' I concluded.
I prepared myself and ran towards the Serpent in a burst of speed that even surprised me. I dodged its tail swipe once more by ducking under it. Once I got close,
*BAAM*
I hit its underbelly with all my strength.
*Splat* *Splat*
Blood burst out of its gut all over the place, including all over me. There was a large hole in the damned snake that my fist went through.
'SHIT! I really underestimated my strength. It was disgusting. I resisted the urge to puke as I walked a few yards away from the mess I had unintentionally created.
After cleaning myself off as much as I could, I went back near the snake's corpse.
'Although that was traumatizing, I can now finally test out the [Necromancer] skill', I thought as I grinned, ignoring all the blood the best I could.
"Okay, let's do this", I spoke out loud.
"ARISE!"
I felt magicules pouring out of my body and saw them going into the corpse through [Magic Sense]
The Serpent slowly started rising as it was enveloped in a dark shroud.
*WHOOSH*
The Serpent now stood before me, like it did not just get its stomach blasted, my first LEGIONARY!
The gaping hole was gone and the color of its scales was a bit darker.
<'Tempest Serpent' has been added to your Legion. It will be added to the soul circuit as your subordinate.>
"YESSS!", I exclaimed, before I was interrupted by the [Great Sage]
<As a member of your Legion, the 'Tempest Serpent' has received the set-skills [Self-Regeneration] [Perfect Memory] and [Soul Shift]>
<As new skills have been obtained by a member of your Legion, a copy shall be acquired.>
'This is a Jackpot!! So every member of my Legion gets these skills! It's honestly a relief, now I don't have to worry about getting hurt as I can always regenerate.'
'By the way, is this [Soul Shift] related to the [Soul Realm] subskill?'
<Received. Yes, the [Soul Shift] sub-skill allows the members of your Legion to shift into the Soul Realm. It can also be used to travel to another Legion member's position.>
'Niice, what exactly is the Soul Realm anyway?'
<Received. It is an artificial dimension linked to your skill, which is isolated from the rest of the world and is only accessible using the skill [Soul Shift]. Its size is directly proportional to your magicule capacity. Time works the same in the Soul realm and light, breathable air, atmospheric pressure, gravity, and other concepts are artificially maintained using magicules. Therefore, they can be manipulated as per your wishes. Any entity with a will cannot enter the Soul Realm unless they are a part of the Legion>
'That's a LOT to take in. Isn't this skill a bit too overpowered?'
In this world, the skills are divided into 4 tiers; Common, Extra, Unique, and Ultimate. As a general rule, you NEED an ultimate skill to counter an ultimate skill. Of course, there are exceptions, but that's usually the rule. However, there are a few Unique skills that are on a whole another level, closer to the ultimate skills in terms of their power. Some examples are; Masayuki's [Chosen One], Shion's [Master Chef], Chloe's [Absolute Severance] and [Infinity Prison] which she used to seal Veldora, and also [Time Traveler].
Judging by all these overpowered subskills that are included in my skill [Necromancer] I can only conclude that this skill is on par with those. That's definitely going to help me out a lot in the future.
<Report. Common skills [Poisonous Breath] and [Sense Heat Source] copied from Legion member 'Tempest Serpent'>
'Oh yeah I forgot about those skills, they're pretty powerful too, especially the [Poisonous Breath]. It'll make it easier for me to take out all the other monsters in the cave.'
"Well then, no use procrastinating any further, it's time to explore the rest of the cave."
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It's been three months since I left Veldora's sealing chamber. I've already explored the massive cave and found the exit. But I've still not ventured outside yet. [Great Sage] has mapped the whole cave out for future needs.
[Great Sage] also finally synchronized with my soul perfectly, which needed 90 days, now allowing me to use it at full capacity.
One thing I had done repeatedly over the span of the 3 months, was washing myself, since whenever I fought a monster, I would get covered in monster filth.
In the span of these 3 months, I've killed around a 52 monsters. Technically, I personally only killed around 30, the others were killed by my legionaries. I also had to wash myself multiple times in the lake that Rimuru fell into, whenever I used too much strength and popped a monster open.
My legion has expanded and now looks like this:
1. Tempest Serpent: Rank A- : 1
- Sense Heat Source
- Poison Breath
2. Evil Centipede: Rank B+ : 10
- Paralyzing Breath
3. Black Spider: Rank B : 20
- Sticky Thread
- Steel Thread
4. Giant Bat: Rank C+ : 20
- Drain/Vampirism
- Ultrasonic Wave
5. Armorsaurus: Rank B- : 1
- Body Armor
It wasn't surprising that I only found 1 Tempest Serpent and Armorsaurus each, but for entirely different reasons. A Tempest Serpent is a rare and powerful monster which is an apex predator, whereas the armorsaurus is at the bottom of the food chain, making them appear sparsely.
Overall, the skills I gained from the monsters were also pretty handy:
{Tempest Serpent: [Sense Heat Source], [Poison Breath]
Evil Centipede: [Paralyzing Breath]
Black Spider: [Sticky Thread], [Steel Thread]
Giant Bat: [Drain/Vampirism], [Ultrasonic Wave]
Armorsaurus: [Body Armor]}
[Body armor] gave some amount of defense beyond my raw durability where as [Sticky Thread] [Steel Thread] and [Paralyzing Breath] gave me a way to restrain the enemy without damaging them too much.
I didn't have much of a use for either [Drain] or [Ultrasonic Waves] yet, but maybe they'll be useful in the future somehow.
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There was also one another thing lurking in my mind. In the canon timeline, Rimuru comes across a team of adventurers who are ordered to investigate the disappearance of Veldora. They did not arrive this time. That meant that I had already started to change major events from the story.
I obviously wasn't planning on doing everything the same as Rimuru just for the sake of maintaining the timeline.... this was MY story, I would do whatever I want.
But it was still concerning, I can't predict the changes and my future knowledge will slowly become more and more useless and undependable.
Putting these thought in the back of my head, I planned my next course of action.
Before going outside the cave, I still have one more thing to do. Mentally preparing myself, I yelled "[Soul Shift]"
Darkness consumed me as I disappeared from the cave. The scenery changed as I appeared in a barren landscape. There was no sun visible but light was still present.
I looked around me to find anything significant but failed, there was nothing in this empty realm.
There was however, varied topography. The land rose and fell creating hills and plateaus. I started walking around exploring the place.
'Hey [Great Sage] give me a report on this place.'
<Received. This realm appears to be a barren dimension. The atmosphere is filled with YOUR magicules which are responsible for producing light and maintaining this dimension. On further analysis of the landscape and contents, it is found that the ground in the realm is made up of a soil suitable for sustaining life. Cultivation is possible with enough irrigation. The crust is made up of various minerals commonly found in the outside world, but there is one material that is unknown. It can be found deep inside the ground and has similar properties as Magisteel from the outside.
The atmosphere is unsuitable for humans as it contains less amounts of oxygen. The gravitational pull of this place is the exact same as the outside. However, that can be changed as per your wishes. The total surface area is estimated to be 100 km^2. The height is estimated to be 2km as any sensory technique does not work beyond that height.
Your Legionaries are staying in caves dug out inside the hill 600m towards your right. They have not sensed your presence and are currently asleep.>
'Thanks a lot. This place is HUGE!! It can house tens of thousands of Legionaries if utilized correctly. It's even suitable for cultivation, not that me or any of my legionaries will need food or sustenance. It could be useful for trade and storage purposes. It even has a mystery ore which I could use for weapons and technology.'
Yeah that's right, me and all my Legionaries no longer needed food or other nutrients to survive. We could sustain our bodies purely by consuming magicules. It was honestly very weird to me. I would never have to eat or sleep anymore!!
'Wait, let's not get too excited, I don't wanna get my hopes up and then be disappointed. For now I'll just leave this place as is and deal with it once I've got everything settled in the outside world.'
"[Soul Shift]" Once again, darkness filled my vision as I appeared back inside the cave.
'OIIII ASHBORNE!! Where they hell did you go?? I suddenly stopped sensing you!' Veldora's voice boomed in my head.
"Geez, calm down man, I just went into a different dimension which is connected to my skill."
'Oh ok that's a relief, but you gave me a big scare. I was just reaching the climax too. Damn you Ashborne, you broke my flow, Hulk was just about to turn Loki into a ragdoll and beat the shit out of him. I shall return to my movie. Goodbye.' Veldora commented and cut the telepathic connection instantly.
'Yeah yeah, you go binge those movies lazy-ass', I responded dryly.
Now that that's over with, I can finally go outside this dark, gloomy cave. I can already imagine a beautiful breeze hitting my face as I bask in the sunlight.
I walked down the thin path that led to the exit of the cave. Rays of light were starting to be visible as I slowly reached the end of the tunnel.
As I took my final step out of the cave, I was bathed in bright sunlight. The exit was at the foot of a small hill inside a forest. The 'Great Jura Forest' to be exact.
The moment was so beautiful, I saw my first tree after sooo long, this must be how discord mods felt getting out of their house to touch grass after months of being cooped up in their rooms. I started walking around getting a hold of my surroundings.
{A/N: Just kidding, Discord mods would never go out to touch grass.}
If I remember correctly, it took Rimuru a total of 4 months to get out of the cave, that means that I'm a month early.
'What should I do now??' I wondered.
Before I could think any more, the answer presented itself to me.
"Gr-Great Lord, a-are you per-perhaps Veldora-sama??"
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A/N: The third chapter is here! I really enjoyed writing this one for some reason, so I hope you enjoyed it too. Ashborne has finally begun expanding his Legion.
Add this to your Library, and please drop some Power Stones, they serve as good motivation.