LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 19: The Eighth Assignment
It turns out that getting an epic class had a pretty major flaw that no one told me about. The energy requirements were crazy. It was hard to estimate properly but it took more than the combined energy from the first ten levels for me to go from level 20 to 21. If that trend continued my leveling speed would come to a halt. Even if the next two quests provided me with even more dangerous enemies. There were only two more left. The remaining crystals I had made a big difference which only made me unsure of how I should use them. I could keep some for energy recovery or I could use them to push me forward. Even with the increase in energy, they should be able to push me to level 25 or so. I also had to worry about the potential damage to my channels.
The last two quests would have a 90% or higher death rate. I couldn't afford to enter at anything less than 100%. I went back and forth on it for another ten minutes before settling on a decision. I would save the crystal until the end of the tutorial. That last day or two should be safe enough. I was confident that Earth wouldn't be flooded with terrifying enemies. Or at least that we wouldn't be teleported in front of them. That way if I was forced into a position where I had to use a crystal to recover I could.
Getting my class and new title had caused another change. It was hard to explain in words but I had become heavier. Not physically heavy but it was like I had more of an impact on the world around me. At first, I thought I had lost control over my aura and killing intent but that wasn't the case. The changes had made my aura stronger for sure but it was like I had a low gravity effect. If people were ignoring me before now it was like they had no choice but to notice. Which was much more my speed. I leaned against one of the walls as a group of heavily armored people tried their best to not make it obvious they were looking at me. They were really bad at it.
Still, there wasn't much more to it. Everyone had already formed their groups and I had no interest in joining anyone else. Besides I doubted anyone wanted to join me on my mission. I checked the countdown timer and smiled. Only a few more seconds. I bounced on the balls of my feet in excitement. When the timer hit zero I closed my eyes until the familiar sensation of being pulled away ended. I landed on something soft and wet in the next moment. The sensation made me want to puke. I took a glance at the swamp around me and let out a groan. Why the fuck had I been sent to a literal swamp. It smelled like death and humidity.
For a moment I thought the System had teleported me to the Everglades but the trees here were wrong. They were alive but it was like they were also filled with death. It was a bit like I wasn't in a real swamp but a horror movie one. To top it all off there was a faint sense of danger coming from everything. It wasn't enough to make me panic but it did make me uncomfortable. I scanned the trees and the murky water for any signs of a threat but there was nothing. I was just about to pick a direction to go when the system's prompt appeared. A prompt that made me groan.
Survive until time runs out. Timer: 5:59:59. Choice of Reward: High-Grade Wisdom Fruit, High-Grade Agility Fruit, High-Grade Intelligence Fruit
Before I could finish complaining the dull hum of danger intensified. I leaped into the air on instinct just as a pair of leathery hands reached up. My eyes went wide as the scene was repeated as far as the eye could see. I slammed down on the pair of hands before turning and sprinting deeper into the forest. Zombies were pulling themselves out of the ground as if I had been teleported into the Night of the Living Dead. My heart pounded in my chest as the paths in front of and behind me filled with corpses. There beings of all shapes in sizes including an undead cyclops. I unleashed Psychic Blast in its beam form. Seven of them dropped to the ground as soon as the light passed over them. I waited to see if they would get back up but none did.
I stopped running and realized that this wasn't as bad a situation as I originally thought. After all didn't I need to kill a horde of enemies? I grinned as the zombies stopped being monsters and became something else entirely. I summoned Psychic Aegis and rolled my shoulders. First I needed to eliminate thirty of them in a single attack. That meant I needed to line them up. I pushed energy into Psychic Blast and waited for the horde to surround me. Once they began to claw at my shield I took a step forward and unleashed my spell. The indigo light washed over the zombies in front of me I swiped the bean across the front ready to cleave a new path for myself. Only for something strange to happen. The ogre zombie slammed into arm into the blast.
My spell collapsed a second later as energy back lashed into me. It felt like I had been punched in the face by Joe Frazier. I gritted my teeth as I wiped away a trickle of blood. I unleashed another attack this time avoiding the ogre. I carved a path through the sea of corpses and retreated. I should have figured that the zombies would have some special tricks. Why would the System make anything easy on me? The process repeated itself several more times. I was able to get 29 zombies in one beam before either an ogre or another special corpse would step in. To make the situation worse the corpses barely gave any spiritual energy after being defeated.
I bit back a curse and turned my attention to the nearest ogre zombie. A dull voice in the back of my mind told me that this wasn't the best idea. That I didn't have to complete this quest right now but something else, something deeper told me that I couldn't back down. I cleared a path toward the ogre and sprinted for him with everything I had. I drew a rusted dagger from my bag and prepared myself. As soon as I closed within thirty feet the ogre swung its massive bony arm. I leaped into the air as I brought the dagger to meet the attack. It felt like I had tried to stop a runaway train with my arm. My strength was no match for the undead's but I was just able to shift and avoid being sent flying back into the sea of corpses. Instead, I was knocked up and into the air.
I landed on the zombie's shoulders and slammed my dagger through the top of its head. A second later a beam of indigo washed over its head. The ogre collapsed to one knee but I didn't let up. I removed the dagger from its head with a heave before spinning it and slamming it through its temple. Another blast of psychic energy and a surge of energy filled me. As soon as the ogre died all nearby zombies collapsed. I raised an eyebrow in silent question before pulling up my class quest. There it was thirty of thirty. I wasn't about to redeem the quest right now though. I wasn't sure if the process would distract me and the last thing I needed was to be eaten alive because I was impatient. Instead, I looked around for the next special zombies. This one was a humanoid but was bulbous as if it had been filled with sloshing liquids. It even had a black ichor dripping from its mouth. The sight made me want to puke but I knew that it would be the next target.
I unleashed another beam wanting to test the thing's defenses. I wasn't sure what I expected to happen but it wasn't the zombies forming a literal corpse wall. As soon as the fat zombie sensed the attack it spit out a bit of black bile and then all the nearby corpses threw themselves on top like it was catnip. My attack was exhausted long before it reached its target. I wasn't sure how I was supposed to deal with that. I could just unleash attacks until it was drained but who knew how long that would take. I was going to have to waste one of my crystals just to keep this up.
I also couldn't afford to get close. If it threw up on me or exploded when it died I would get covered in the worst shower imaginable. It would also attract the zombies to me which would technically help with the other quest. At the pace I am going a thousand kills would take me a few more hours. Once again running away was an option. I only needed to survive until the timer went out. This quest didn't even include a sentence about performance. Still, that idea didn't sit right with me. I would run and hide if I felt I couldn't handle it but these things didn't seem too strong. I reviewed my options a few more times before I settled on long-range bombardment. Despite the potential benefits, there was just no way I was going to let myself get covered in filth.
The battle took almost thirty minutes and half a 2nd realm crystal but the fat zombie was killed. It also completely exploded thankfully I was far enough away but it did draw in every zombie nearby. It was literally like shooting fish in a barrel. By the time I was done, I was around four hundred out of a thousand on my Psychic Mastery quest. Which wasn't enough. I cracked my neck as the world around me descended into chaos. Killing two of the controllers caused the zombies to erupt into a fury. It was like their minds were gone and they were just a mindless horde. Or rather a horde that only wanted to rip me apart. A rational part of me wanted to run from the horde but I found myself laughing as the horde grew closer.
I gave up on fighting the battle mania that filled me. If I was being honest with myself I had long since started to enjoy it. I unleashed the hold on my aura and my killing intent. It felt like I had been holding my breath for years. As if a part of me had been trapped and in a very real way it was true. I didn't have to concentrate on it this time since there were zombies in every direction. I didn't think the aura would affect the zombies since they seemed more like irrational beasts but I was wrong. Very wrong. It was like they had entered a quagmire where every step threatened to rip the flesh off their bones. As if they had entered a tunnel filled with gale-force winds.
That thought resonated with something deep inside me. As if the truth of that statement ran deeper than I realized. I had to force my mind back to the current moment. I was pretty sure I knew what that was but I had no time to deal with it. So I turned my attention back to the zombies. I summoned Psychic Aegis, unleashed a roar of defiance, and ran forward to meet the undead.
The slaughter was mostly one-sided. Without the two special zombies, they were mindless which wasn't good per-say but it made avoiding them much easier. I took a seat against the gnarled bark of the decayed tree as I looked over my quest progress.
1. Psychic Mastery(Class): Mastery is born through experience. Kill 1,000 Enemies Reward: Psychic Mastery (700/1,000)
2. Psionic Rain (Class): The Mind is the Only Weapon you will ever need. Defeat thirty opponents with a single attack. Reward: Psionic Rain Spell. (30/30)
3. Intellect Fortress(Class): Endure 10 Psychic Attacks. Reward: Intellect Fortress(0/10)
Now that I had a quiet moment part of me wanted to claim the new spell. I considered it for a few moments and there was a strong part of me that wanted to save it. I would have preferred to redeem the spell in the safety of my apartment but that wasn't being real. I was still in a dangerous scenario for the next few hours which meant I needed every weapon at my disposal. If I was willing to fight a rusty dagger or grab a rock in a cave then I would be an idiot not to use a weapon made for me. With my mind made up I confirmed the quest's completion and felt a familiar surge of energy. I moved my mind's eye over my body just in time to catch the new sigil form.
It formed on my right arm a bit above where Psychic Blast had settled. Part of me wondered if there was a rhyme or reason to spell placement but I ignored it. This sigil was more complex than both blast and aegis. I wasn't sure what shape it was supposed to be but it was beautiful to look at. I opened my eyes to the real world just as a new prompt window appeared.
[1]Psionic Rain – Proficiency: Novice. The Mind is the Only Weapon you will ever need. Upgradeable
A storm of information filled my mind a second later. It only took me a second to process it all but when I was done I couldn't help but laugh. It was an area-of-effect damage spell that would cause mental weapons to fall from the sky. In other words, it was exactly what I needed. The spell was also ranked. It was a "Peak" quality which if I assumed it followed the set of four that proficiency did there should be a "Low", "Middle", "High" and then a peak. Of course, peak might have been the high equivalent but the small burst didn't explain any further. I just added it to the list of questions I had.
A roar pulled me back to the task at hand. I got to my feet in time to see another special zombie charging me. This one wasn't humanoid and was closer to a thirty-foot-long undead crocodile. Its scales were curved in a dark black mist that made my skin crawl. Trailing behind the overgrown lizard was another horde of zombies. I summoned my aegis again and started to push energy into my newest spell. I grimaced at the total expenditure. It was around one and a half times the cost of Psychic Blast. As soon as the spell had drunk its fill a ball of deep indigo light shot up into the air. The ball looked like a miniature sun as it floated ominously. A mental thread connected me to it a second later and I realized how the spell worked. I grinned as I let the horde get closer and closer. The open-rotted mouth of the crocodile is my main target.
As soon as they were close enough I ordered the ball to shatter. The ball of energy turned into an uncountable number of blades. All of them were a different size and shot toward the incoming horde like heat-seeking missiles. The attack slammed into the crocodile with enough force that it was reduced to zombie chunks. The spell wasn't exhausted after killing its first target and it quickly decimated the first layer of the horde. Kill energy flooded into me a second after confirming that the spell was better than advertised. What made it even better was that it had a short cool down. I unleashed it again before the horde had crossed half the distance to me. I decided to aim at a spot in the middle of the group instead of at a specific zombie. The resulting blast killed most of the horde though a few survivors had managed to get through. It appeared that the full AOE was around twenty feet or so. Of course, I could narrow it for a stronger but more narrowed effect.
After that, it only took me a couple of minutes to finish off the stranglers. There weren't enough zombies to complete my quest but I still had a bit under three hours to go before I would be teleported away. The only thing that would make this place a better grinding spot would be if they had zombies that unleashed mental attacks. To put the icing on the proverbial cake I was slowly but surely creeping up on level 21. Assuming I didn't have to wait too much more energy on attacks I figured I would reach the level after a normal day of cultivation. I caught sight of the next horde of zombies and smiled. This one was being led by another ogre only it was about twice as big as the last one. Making me wonder if giants or titans were real. I reigned in my excitement and curiosity to focus on the task at hand. This quest had quickly turned into a gold mine for me and I intended to extract every last benefit possible.