Chapter 312: Chapter 300 – Capture or Kill?

Excerpt from the second draft of An Earthling’s Guide to the Larger Universe

Common Utility Path Abilities

There are many different abilities that are available from different Paths; one thing to remember is that many Paths overlap. This is especially true for what are called ‘utility’ abilities; these are abilities that the Voice seems to want to give to almost everyone. Many of them are available in different versions; I’ll list the generic version below and try to give a few examples.

This is a somewhat arbitrary list; there are a number of common abilities (such as danger sense) that I’m not listing because I’m considering them to be something other than ‘utility’.

Loot

Probably the most common utility, Loot allows its user to turn a monster (or sometimes a beast) into something else. It is almost always found as a more specific form; for example, a hunter might get Loot Meat (which would turn a body into pre-sectioned meat without having to prepare it, though it would be less meat than doing it the normal way), while a dedicated delver might have Loot Item (which generally works only in dungeons and only on a subset of monsters); Loot Material abilities are generally considered the most valuable Loot abilities, but this depends heavily on where they are used and on exactly which Loot Material ability it is. Loot Item is the most generic and most random, as it can result in anything.

…

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[Phase 4 Combat complete. Results:

Corn Maze: Avatar: Destroyed

Serenity: Avatar: Healthy]

[Surrender rejected]

[Phase 5 initiated: Round Four]

Serenity’s vision zoomed back out to the black emptiness where he floated, watching the green dungeon core. The field between the two of them vanished as Serenity watched, and there was nothing else to watch other than the words the Voice presented.

[Select your mode for the Round Four: Dungeon Manifestation, Avatar, or Core (Unavailable - protected by Avatar)]

There was still only one real choice.

Avatar

[Phase 5 Combat: Corn Maze Core vs Avatar (Serenity)]

[Begin]

Unlike the previous rounds, there was no field to fight on, simply the two of them floating in the darkness. Serenity reached out to the Voice.

What is all of this about? It’s been fun, but it doesn’t seem very productive.

There was no reply.

Serenity couldn’t let the lack of information stop him. He knew that he was his own avatar, and he was supposed to be fighting the core. Was it really as simple as destroying a dungeon core normally was? Not that that was easy, but he was Tier Two; he could probably do it by hand. Even if he couldn’t, his axe could.

Serenity directed himself towards the green crystal. After a moment, the dungeon core shrouded itself in something that looked like green lightning. Serenity paused outside the area while he looked at it.

It was mana, but what sort of mana? Serenity didn’t immediately recognize it.

It was green, but there were many different Affinities that were green. One of the reasons he’d worked so hard once upon a time to at least initiate all of the “standard” affinities was that knowing which Affinity something was could tell you a lot about what it could do, but Serenity didn’t feel a particular resonance with any of his Affinities.

A clear shade of leaf-green usually meant Life or one of its relatives, but he didn’t feel Life from it. It took Serenity a moment to remember that his Life Affinity had been purged. He’d have to use his knowledge instead of his Affinity.

Serenity pushed out several wisps of mana, as if he were going to build a complex spellform, tinged them with his different Affinities, then swirled them around the green lightning beyond its reach. The lightning reacted at least a little to all of them; most Affinities had some relationship, after all. Watching the reactions could tell him a lot.

The mana in the lightning behaved strangely. It shivered and seemed to try to separate. Serenity stared intently, trying to understand what he was seeing.

Green and green, but two different shades. One with a hint of translucence that flashes red; the other an iridescent sheen. The iridescent one almost acts like Life mana, but it has a far stronger elemental reaction than I’d expect of pure Life mana, while the translucent one with hints of red reacts strongly to Mind mana. So something physical and something mental. Physical and near to Life; that’s probably Nature mana. It probably explains the form of lightning it’s taking.

Green and mental with flashes of red, though, that’s unusual. Could it really be Jealousy mana? Emotional mana is rare, but it might explain some things. If this core has Jealousy as one of its innate characteristics, I never had a chance to talk it into working with Gaia. It’d become jealous of something about Her and start fighting Her for control at best; at worst, it’d start trying to attack other dungeon cores for taking her attention away from it. Or something I can’t even think of.

That doesn’t explain why it was so hostile to begin with. Not that jealousy really needs an explanation.

I can’t do anything about it. I simply need to accept that this dungeon was unsalvageable and break the core.

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There were several ways to deal with the angry lightning dancing around the core. Serenity decided he’d try the simplest first. He drew his ax again and set it against the edge of the lightning.

The green-tinged mana sparked as it hit the axeblade and sunk into the weapon, dissipating harmlessly. Serenity smiled as he watched how slow the dungeon was to realize what was happening; the radius covered by the lightning had shrunk by nearly a foot before it acted, pulling the magic back towards itself.

Serenity followed and the core proved that it could be at least somewhat sneaky as a single green lightning strike arced out of the core, cleanly avoided the ax, and hit Serenity square on the chest.

There was a mild momentary pressure on his body as the Nature mana attempted to damage him and a similar pressure on his mind, but with his resistances it was barely even noticeable. Serenity shook his head and floated closer to the core; after feeling how weak its attack was, he was much less worried about the core’s defenses.

With the knowledge that he wasn’t in any danger, Serenity knew there was no need to rush. Serenity paused when he reached arm’s length away from the core. It slammed bolt after bolt of green lightning at him; he cut most of them with his ax, damaging the spell’s structure and making the bolt fizzle. The ones he didn’t catch impacted on his armor with the same lack of result as the first strike.

Serenity simply stood there and waited. The core would eventually realize it wasn’t working, wouldn’t it?

Eventually, the barrage stopped. Serenity watched the core to see what it was going to try next; there were a lot of interesting things that could be done with Nature mana. While he didn’t have much experience with Jealousy mana, he’d seen Rage mana used for some amazing effects and he hoped to discover exactly what the core did with its Jealousy mana.

It took almost a minute to realize that there simply wasn’t anything else coming at him. Serenity was disappointed in the core and even more disappointed that he wasn’t going to be able to learn something new about magic. Lightning was a straightforward Nature attack, but not a creative or particularly powerful one. Having it carry a mental component was strange but not particularly useful; Serenity knew several ways to achieve a similar result and they were all quite inefficient.

Breaking a dungeon core at the same Tier wasn’t easy; they were solid crystal. Certain Paths made it easier, while others could simply take control of the core. Serenity had never had any of either type of Path; his Path through dungeons was killing the monsters and collecting materials, not dealing with the core.

This one needed to die, and Serenity doubted it would be the last one he would kill in his new life if he kept his promise to Gaia. Serenity hoped more of them would be like Aki than like the Corn Maze, but this was only the sixth dungeon he’d seen on Earth and half of those were either his or Aki’s; so far, a third of the feral dungeons were dangerous. That seemed too high, but it almost certainly meant there would be more.

Serenity needed to find out what he had to do to break a dungeon core in this space. He was fairly confident the ax would work, but he didn’t want to restrict himself to it. It was powerful, but he didn’t want it to be the crutch he used for all of his solutions.

The best option would be if he - at Tier Two - was strong enough to simply break a Tier One core. It was possible; all Serenity knew was that you needed either the right Path or a Tier advantage. He was confident there were spells that would work as well, but he didn’t want to take the time to craft one immediately; creating a new spell wasn’t fast.

Serenity grasped the drained core between his hands and tightened his claws on the crystal. They sank in as though the crystal was barely there, even though he could clearly feel it with his hands.

Serenity felt a sudden shock similar to the lightning attacks from the core as its mana attempted to push into his body. It was an attack that immediately made Serenity’s mind return to the first time he consciously encountered a necromancer after becoming a draugr; the necromancer attempted to take control of the “spell” animating Vengeance by flooding the draugr’s body with his own mana.

The necromancer’s attack didn’t work because Vengeance was intelligent and powerful enough to defend himself, but the memory triggered an immediate reaction from Serenity. He pushed his own mana out, defending himself against the far weaker assault. His mana flooded into the green crystal and he knew that it was his now.

Serenity stood stock still as he brought himself back to the present. His claws were sunk deep into the crystal core of a dungeon; colors swirled in the crystal. Somehow, he knew that the deep bluish purple was his own mana displacing the green of the core; it was the color of his scales and his hair.

It was very different from the black he’d always seen his mana as when he was the Final Reaper. It struck him as strange that he hadn’t realized his mana had changed so much until that moment and he watched, mesmerized. It was still dark, but it no longer spoke solely of death and loss.

Somewhere he felt a choice. It wasn’t in words, at first. As he watched, it seemed to become clearer and clearer until it might as well have been words.

[Capture]

[Destroy]

It was a choice. What was he going to do with the core?

Serenity had already made that choice. He tightened his hands around the core and twisted.

He’d expected the core to twist and shatter, but instead of that, his claws slid through the crystal as though it were Jello. As he tightened his grip, the crystal simply disintegrated leaving a mass of his mana floating in front of him.

He pulled the mana back into himself; it felt like a cool spring breeze.

The dark space around him disappeared and Serenity found himself kneeling in front of an empty pedestal in a corn maze.

[XP Awarded: 50]

[Dungeon collapsing: 00:05:00.00]

Serenity pulled up his Status and checked. His Path level hadn’t moved since that morning other than a tiny amount of experience, but his Core Progression had jumped tremendously.

He didn’t have time to think about what that meant.

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General